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SHAKESPEARE'S 

THE WINTER'S TALE. 



INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL. 



FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. 



Rev. HENRY Nf HUDSON, 

.PROFESSOR OF SHAKESPEARE IN BOSTON UNIVERSITY. 




BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY GINN & HEATH. 

1880. 



7- 
.Aa. H* 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 

Henry N. Hudson, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Ginn & Heath: 

J. S. Cushing, Printer, 16 Hawley Street, 

Boston. 



) I 



INTRODUCTION. 



Date of the Composition. 

IN Shakespeare's time there lived in London one Simon 
Forman, M.D., to whom we are indebted for our earliest 
notice of The Winter's Tale. He was rather an odd 
genius, I should think ; being a dealer in occult science and 
the arts of magic, and at the same time an ardent lover of the 
stage \ thus symbolizing at once with the most conservative 
and the most progressive tendencies of the age : for, strange 
as it may seem, the Drama then led the van of progress ; 
Shakespeare being even a more audacious innovator in 
poetry and art than Bacon was in philosophy. Be this as it 
may, Forman evidently took great delight in the theatre, 
and he kept a diary of what he witnessed there. In 1836, 
the manuscript of this diary was discovered in the Ashmo- 
lean Museum, and a portion of its contents published. 
Forman was at the Globe theatre on Wednesday, the 15th 
of May, 16 1 1, and under that date he records " how Leontes 
King of Sicilia was overcome with jealousy of his wife with 
the King of Bohemia, his friend that came to see him, and 
how he contrived his death, and would have had his cup- 
bearer poison him, who gave the King warning thereof, and 
fled with him to Bohemia. Also, how he sent to the oracle 
of Apollo, and the answer of Apollo was that she was guilt- 



4 THE WINTER S TALE. 

less ; and, except the child was found again that was lost, 
the King should die without issue : for the child was carried 
into Bohemia, and there laid in a forest, and brought up by 
a shepherd \ and the King of Bohemia's son married that 
wench, and they fled into Sicilia, and by the jewels found 
about her she was known to be Leontes' daughter, and was 
then sixteen years old." 

This clearly identifies the performance seen by Forman 
as The Winter's Tale of Shakespeare. It is altogether 
probable that the play was then new, and was in its first 
course of exhibition. For Sir George Buck became Master 
of the Revels in October, 1610, and was succeeded in that 
office by Sir Henry Herbert in 1623, who passed The Win- 
ter's Tale without examination, on the ground of its being 
an "old play formerly allowed by Sir George Buck." As 
the play had to be licensed before it could be performed, 
this ascertains its first preformance to have been after Oc- 
tober, 16 10. So that The Winter's Tale was most likely 
presented for official sanction some time between that date 
and the 15th of May following, when Forman saw it at the 
Globe. To all this must be added the internal characteris- 
tics of the play itself, which is in the Poet's ripest and most 
idiomatic style of art. It is not often that the date of his 
workmanship can be so closely marked. The Winter's 
Tale was never printed, so far as we know, till it appeared 
in the folio of 1623. 

Source of the Plot. 

In the plot and incidents of this play, Shakespeare followed 
very closely the Pandosto, or, as it was sometimes called, 
the Dorastus and Fawnia, of Robert Greene. This novel 
appears to have been one of the most popular books of the 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

time ; there being no less than fourteen old editions of it 
known, the first of which was in 1588. Greene was a 
scholar, a man of some genius, Master of Arts in both the 
Universities, and had indeed much more of learning than 
of judgment in the use and application of it. For it seems 
as if he could not write at all without overloading his pages 
with classical allusion, nor hit upon any thought so trite 
and commonplace, but that he must run it through a series 
of aphoristic sentences twisted out of Greek and Roman 
lore. In this respect, he is apt to remind one of his fellow- 
dramatist, Thomas Lodge, whose Rosalynd contributed so 
much to the Poet's As You Like It: for it was then much 
the fashion for authors to prank up their matter with super- 
fluous erudition. Like all the surviving works of Greene, 
Pan do s to is greatly charged with learned impertinence, and 
in the annoyance thence resulting one is apt to overlook the 
real merit of the performance. It is better than Lodge's 
Rosalynd for this reason, if for no other, that it is shorter. 
I must condense so much of the tale as may suffice to in- 
dicate the nature and extent of the Poet's obligations. 

Pandosto, King of Bohemia, and Egistus, King of Sicilia, 
had passed their boyhood together, and grow r n into a mutual 
friendship which kept its hold on them long after coming to 
their crowns. Pandosto had for his wife a very wise and 
beautiful lady named Bellaria, who had made him the father 
of a prince called Garinter in whom both himself and his 
people greatly delighted. After many years of separation, 
Egistus " sailed into Bohemia to visit his old friend," who, 
hearing of his arrival, went with a great train of lords and 
ladies to meet him, received him very lovingly, and wished 
his wife to welcome him. No pains were spared to honour 
the royal visitor and make him feel at home. Bellaria, "to 



O THE WINTER S TALE. 

show how much she liked him whom her husband loved," 
treated Egistus with great confidence, often going herself to 
his chamber to see that nothing should be amiss. This 
honest familiarity increased from day to day, insomuch that 
when Pandosto was busy with State affairs they would walk 
into the garden and pass their time in pleasant devices. 
After a while, Pandosto began to have doubtful thoughts, 
'considering the beauty of his wife, and the comeliness and 
bravery of his friend. This humour growing upon him, he 
went to watching them, and fishing for proofs to confirm his 
suspicions. At length his mind got so charged with jealousy 
that he felt quite certain of the thing he feared, and studied 
for nothing so much as revenge. He resolved to work by 
poison, and called upon his cup-bearer, Franion, to execute 
the scheme, and pressed him to it with the alternative of 
preferment or death. The minister, after trying his best to 
dissuade the King, at last gave his consent, in order to gain 
time, then went to Egistus, and told him the secret, and fled 
with him to Sicilia. Full of rage at being thus baffled, Pan- 
dosto then let loose his fury against the Queen, ordering her 
forthwith into close prison. He then had his suspicion pro- 
claimed as a certain truth ; and though her character went 
far to discredit the charge, yet the sudden flight of Egistus 
caused it to be believed. And he would fain have made 
war on Egistus, but that the latter not only was of great 
strength and prowess, but had many kings in his alliance, his 
wife being daughter to the Emperor of Russia. 

Meanwhile the Queen in prison gave birth to a daughter ; 
which put the King in a greater rage than ever, insomuch 
that he ordered both the mother and the babe to be burnt 
alive. Against this cruel sentence his nobles stoutly re- 
monstrated ; but the most they could gain was, that he 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

should spare the child's life ; his next device being to put 
her in a boat and leave her to the mercy of the winds and 
waves. At the hearing of this hard doom, the Queen fell 
down in a trance, so that all thought her dead ; and on 
coming to herself she at last gave up the babe, saying, " Let 
me kiss thy lips, sweet infant, and wet thy tender cheeks with 
my tears, and put this chain about thy little neck, that if 
fortune save thee, it may help to succour thee." 

When the day of trial came, the Queen, standing as a 
prisoner at the bar, and seeing that nothing but her death 
would satisfy the King, " waxed bold, and desired that she 
might have law and justice," and that her accusers might be 
brought before her face. The King replied that their word 
was enough, the flight of Egistus confirming what they had 
said ; and that it was her part "to be impudent in forswear- 
ing the fact, since she had passed all shame in committing 
the fault." At the same time he threatened her with a cruel 
death ; which she met by telling him that her life had ever 
been such as no spot of suspicion could stain, and that, if 
she had borne a friendly countenance towards Egistus, it 
was only as he was her husband's friend : " therefore, if she 
were condemned without further proof, it was rigour, and 
not law." The judges said she spoke reason, and begged 
that her accusers might be openly examined and sworn ; 
whereupon the King went to browbeating them, the very 
demon of tyranny having got possession of him. The 
Queen then told him that, if his fury might stand for law, it 
was of no use for the jury to give their verdict ; and there- 
fore she begged him to send six of his noblemen to " the 
Isle of Delphos," to inquire of Apollo whether she were 
guilty or not. This request he could not refuse. The mes- 
sengers using all haste soon came back with the sealed 



8 THE WINTER S TALE. 

answer of Apollo. The court being now assembled again, 
the scroll was opened and read in their presence, its contents 
being much the same as in the play. As soon as Apollo's 
verdict was known, the people raised a great shout, rejoicing 
and clapping their hands, that the Queen was clear. The 
repentant King then besought his nobles to intercede with 
the Queen in his behalf, at the same time confessing how he 
had tried to compass the death of Egistus ; and while he 
was doing this word came that the young Prince was sud- 
denly dead ; at the hearing of which the Queen fell down, 
and could never be revived : the King also sank down sense- 
less, and lay in that state three days ; and there was nothing 
but mourning in Bohemia. Upon reviving, the King was so 
frenzied with grief and remorse that he would have killed 
himself, but that his peers being present stayed his hand, 
entreating him to spare his life for the people's sake. He 
had the Queen and Prince very richly and piously entombed ; 
and from that time repaired daily to the tomb to bewail his 
loss. 

Up to this point, the play, so far as the mere incidents 
are concerned, is little else than a dramatized version of the 
tale : henceforth the former diverges more widely from the 
latter, though many of the incidents are still the same in 
both. 

The boat with its innocent freight was carried by wind 
and tide to the coast of Sicilia, where it stuck in the sand. 
A poor shepherd, missing one of his sheep, wandered to 
the seaside in search of it. As he was about to return he 
heard a cry, and, there being no house near, he thought it 
might be the bleating of his sheep ; and going to look more 
narrowly he spied a little boat from which the cry seemed 
to come. Wondering what it might be, he waded to the 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

boat, and found the babe lying there ready to die of cold 
and hunger, wrapped in an embroidered mantle, and hav- 
ing a chain about the neck. Touched with pity he took 
the infant in his arms, and as he was fixing the mantle 
there fell at his feet a very fair rich purse containing a 
great sum of gold. To secure the benefit of this wealth, 
he carried the babe home as secretly as he could, and gave 
her in charge to his wife, telling her the process of the 
discovery. The shepherd's name was Porrus, his wife's 
Mopsa ; the precious foundling they named Fawnia. Being 
themselves childless, they brought her up tenderly as their 
own daughter. With the gold Porrus bought a farm and 
a flock of sheep, which Fawnia at the age of ten was set 
to watch ; and, as she was likely to be his only heir, many 
rich farmers' sons came to his house as wooers ; for she was 
of singular beauty and excellent wit, and at sixteen grew to 
such perfection of mind and person that her praises were 
spoken at the Sicilian Court. Nevertheless she still went 
forth every day with the sheep, veiling her face from the 
Sun with a garland of flowers ; which attire became her so 
well, that she seemed the goddess Flora herself for beauty. 

King Egistus had an only son, named Dorastus, a Prince 
so adorned with gifts and virtues, that both King and peo- 
ple had great joy of him. He being now of ripe age, his 
father sought to match him with some princess ; but the 
youth was little minded to wed, as he had more pleasure in 
the exercises of the field and the chase. One day, as he was 
pursuing this sport, he chanced to fall in with the lovely 
shepherdess, and while he was wrapt in wonder at the vision 
one of his pages told him she was Fawnia, whose beauty 
was so much talked of at the Court. 

The story then goes on to relate the matter of their court- 



10 THE WINTERS TALE. 

ship ; how the Prince resolved to forsake his home and in- 
heritance, and become a shepherd, for her sake, as she could 
not think of matching with one above her degree ; how, 
forecasting the opposition and dreading the anger of his 
father, he planned for escaping into Italy, in which enterprise 
he was assisted by an old servant of his named Capnio, who 
managed the affair so shrewdly, that the Prince made good 
his escape, taking the old shepherd along with him ; how, 
after they got to sea, the ship was seized by a tempest and 
carried away to Bohemia; and how at length the several 
parties met together at the Court of Pandosto, which drew 
on a disclosure of the facts, and a happy marriage of the 
fugitive lovers. 

Departures from the Novel. 

From the foregoing sketch, it would seem that the Poet 
must have written with the novel before him, and not merely 
from general recollection. Here, again, as in case of As You 
Like It, to appreciate his judgment and taste, one needs to 
compare his workmanship in detail with the original, and to 
note what he left unused. The free sailing between Sicily 
and Bohemia he retained, inverting, however, the local order 
of the persons and incidents, so that Polixenes and Florizel 
are Bohemian Princes, whereas their prototypes, Egistus and 
his son, are Sicilians. The reason of this inversion does not 
appear. Of course, the Poet could not have done it with 
any view to disguise his obligations ; as his purpose evidently 
was, to make the popular interest of the tale tributary to his 
own success and profit. The most original of men, he was 
also the most free from pride and conceit of originality. In 
this instance, too, as in others, the instinctive rectitude of his 
genius is manifest in that, the subject once chosen, and the 



INTRODUCTION. II 

work begun, he thenceforth lost himself in the inspiration of 
his theme ; all thoughts of popularity and pay being swallowed 
up in the supreme regards of Nature and Truth. For so, in 
his case, however prudence might dictate the plan, poetry 
was sure to have command of the execution. If he was but 
human in electing what to do, he became divine as soon 'as 
he went to doing it. And it is further considerable that, with 
all his borrowings in this play, the Poet nowhere drew more 
richly or more directly from his own spring. The whole life 
of the work is in what he gave, not in what he took ; the 
mechanism of the story being used but as a skeleton to 
underpin and support the eloquent contexture of life and 
beauty. In the novel, Paulina and the Clown are wanting 
altogether ; while Capnio yields but a slight hint, if indeed it 
be so much, towards the part of Antolycus. And, besides 
the great addition of life and matter in these persons, the 
play has several other judicious departures from the novel. 

In Leontes all the revolting features of Pandosto, save his 
jealousy, and the headstrong insolence and tyranny thence 
proceeding, are purged away ; so that while the latter has 
neither intellect nor generosity to redeem his character, 
jealousy being the least of his faults, the other has a liberal 
stock of both. And in Bellaria the Poet had little more than 
a bare framework of incident wherein to set the noble, lofty 
womanhood of Hermione, — a conception far, far above the 
reach of such a mind as Greene's. In the matter of the 
painted statue, Shakespeare, so far as is known, was al- 
together without a model, as he is without an imitator ; the 
boldness of the plan being indeed such as nothing but entire 
success could justify, and wherein it is hardly possible to 
conceive of anybody but Shakespeare's having succeeded. 
And yet here it is that we are to look for the idea and formal 



12 THE WINTERS TALE. 

cause of Hermione's character, while her character, again, is 
the shaping and informing power of the whole drama. For 
this idea is really the living centre and organic law in and 
around which all the parts of the work are vitally knit to- 
gether. But, indeed, the Poet's own most original and 
inimitable mode of conceiving and working out character is 
everywhere dominant. 

Historical Anachronisms. 

So much has been said about the anachronisms of this 
play, that it seems needful to add a word concerning them. 
We have already seen that the making of seaports and land- 
ing of ships in Bohemia were taken from Greene. Verplanck 
conjectures that by Bohemia Shakespeare meant simply the 
land of the Boh, an ancient people several tribes of whom 
settled in the maritime parts of France : but I hardly think 
he would have used the name with so much license at a time 
when the boundaries of that country were so well fixed and 
so widely known. For the events of the Reformation had 
made Bohemia an object of special interest to the people of 
England, and there was much intercourse between the Eng- 
lish and Bohemian Courts. I have no notion indeed that 
this breach of geography was a blunder : it was meant, no 
doubt, for the convenience of thought ; and such is its effect, 
until one goes to viewing the parts of the work with reference 
to ends not contemplated in the use here made of them. 
And the same is to be said touching several points of chrono- 
logical confusion ; such as the making of Whitsun pastorals, 
Christian burial, Julio Romano, the Emperor of Russia, and 
Puritans singing psalms to hornpipes, all contemporary with 
the Oracle of Delphi; wherein actual things are but mar- 
shalled into an ideal order, so as to render Memory subser- 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

vient to Imagination. In these and such points, it is enough 
that the materials be apt to combine among themselves, and 
that they agree in working out the issue proposed, the end 
thus regulating the use of the means. For a work of art, as 
such, should be itself an object for the mind to rest upon, 
not a directory to guide it to something else. So that here 
we may justly say " the mind is its own place " ; and, provided 
the work be true to this intellectual whereabout, breaches of 
geography and history are of little consequence. And Shake- 
speare knew full well, that in poetical workmanship Memory 
stands absolved from the laws of time, and that the living 
order of art has a perfect right to overrule and supersede the 
chronological order of facts. In a word, history and chro- 
nology have no rights which a poet, as such, is bound to re- 
spect. In his sphere, things draw together and unite in vir- 
tue of other affinities than those of succession and coexistence. 
A work of art must indeed aim to be understood and felt ; 
and so far as historical order is necessary to this, so far it 
may justly claim a prerogative voice. But still such a work 
must address itself to the mind and heart of man as man, 
and not to particular men as scholars or critics. That Shake- 
speare did this better than anybody else is the main secret 
of his supremacy. And it implies a knowledge far deeper 
than books could give, — the knowledge of a mind so intui- 
tive of Nature, and so at home with her, as not to need the 
food of learning, because it fed directly on that which is the 
original food of learning itself. 

Hence the conviction which I suppose all true Shakespear- 
ians to have, that no amount of scholastic advantages and 
acquirements could really do any thing towards explaining 
the mystery of his works. To do what he did at all, he must 
have had a native genius so strong and clear and penetrative, 



14 THE WINTER S TALE. 

as to become more than learned without the aid of learning. 
What could, the hydrants of knowledge do for a mind which 
thus dwelt at its fountain? Or why should he need to con- 
verse with Wisdom's messengers, whose home was in the very 
court and pavilion of Wisdom herself? Shakespeare is always 
weakest when a fit of learning takes him. But then he is 
stronger without learning than any one else is with it, and, 
perhaps, than he would have been with it himself; as the 
crutches that help the lame are but an incumbrance to the 
whole. 

Perhaps I ought to add, touching the forecited anachro- 
nisms, that the Poet's sense of them may be fairly regarded 
as apparent in the naming of the piece. He seems to have 
judged that, in a dramatic tale intended for the delight of 
the fireside during a long, quiet Winter's evening, such 
things would not be out of place, and would rather help than 
mar the entertainment and life of the performance. Thus 
much indeed is plainly hinted more than once in the course 
of the play ; as in Act v. scene 2, where, one of the Gentle- 
men being asked, " What became of Antigonus, that carried 
hence the child?" he replies, "Like an old tale still, which 
will have matter to rehearse, though credit be asleep, and 
not an ear open." 

Much the same is to be said touching the remarkable 
freedom which the Poet here takes with the conditions of 
time ; there being an interval of sixteen years between the 
third and fourth Acts, which is with rather un- Shakespearian 
awkwardness bridged over by the Chorus introducing Act iv. 
This freedom, however, was inseparable from the governing 
idea of the piece, nor can it be faulted but upon such grounds 
as would exclude all dramatized romance from the stage. 
It is to be noted also that while the play thus divides itself 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

into two parts, these are skillfully woven together by a happy 
stroke of art. The last scene of the third Act not only 
finishes the action of the first three, but by an apt and un- 
forced transition begins that of the other two ; the two 
parts of the drama being smoothly drawn into the unity of 
a continuous whole by the introduction of the old Shep- 
herd and his son at the close of the one and the opening 
of the other. This natural arrangement saves the imagina- 
tion from being disturbed by any yawning or obtrusive 
gap of time, notwithstanding the lapse of so many years in 
the interval. On this point, Gervinus remarks that, " while 
Shakespeare has in other dramas permitted a twofold action 
united by a common idea, he could not in this instance have 
entirely concentrated the two actions ; he could but unite 
them indistinctly by a leading idea in both ; though the 
manner in which he has outwardly united them is a delicate 
and spirited piece of art. 

Character of Leontes. 

In the delineation of Leontes there is an abruptness of 
change which strikes us, at first view, as not a little a-clash 
with nature : we cannot well see how one state of mind 
grows out of another : his jealousy shoots in comet-like, as 
something unprovided for in the general ordering of his 
character. Which causes this feature to appear as if it were 
suggested rather by the exigencies of the stage than by the 
natural workings of human passion. And herein the Poet 
seems at variance with himself; his usual method being to 
unfold a passion in its rise and progress, so that we go along 
with it freely from its origin to its consummation. And, 
certainly, there is no accounting for Leontes' conduct, but 
by supposing a predisposition to jealousy in him, which. 



l6 THE WINTER'S TALE. 

however, has been hitherto kept latent by his wife's clear, 
firm, serene discreetness, but which breaks out into sudden 
and frightful activity as soon as she, under a special pres- 
sure of motives, slightly overacts the confidence of friend- 
ship. There needed but a spark of occasion to set this 
secret magazine of passion all a-blaze. 

The Pandosto of the novel has, properly speaking, no 
character at all : he is but a human figure going through a 
set of motions ; that is, the person and the action are put 
together arbitrarily, and not under any law of vital corre- 
spondence. Almost any other figure would fit the motions 
just as well. It is true, Shakespeare had a course of action 
marked out for him in the tale. But then he was bound 
by his own principles of art to make the character such as 
would rationally support the action, and cohere with it. 
For such is the necessary law of moral development and 
transpiration. Nor is it by any means safe to affirm that 
he has not done this. For it is to be noted that Polixenes 
has made a pretty long visit, having passed, it seems, no 
less than nine lunar months at the home of his royal friend. 
And he might well have found it not always easy to avoid 
preferring the Queen's society to the King's ; for she is a 
most irresistible creature, and her calm, ingenuous mod- 
esty, itself the most dignified of all womanly graces, is what, 
more than any thing else, makes her so. What secret 
thoughts may have been gathering to a head in the mind 
of Leontes during that period, is left for us to divine from 
the after-results. And I believe there is a jealousy of friend- 
ship, as well as of love. x\ccordingly, though Leontes in- 
vokes the Queen's influence to induce a lengthening of the 
visit, yet he seems a little disturbed on seeing that her in- 
fluence has proved stronger than his own. 



INTRODUCTION. 1 7 

Lew. Is he won yet ? 

Heim. He'll stay, my lord. 

Leon. At my request he would not. 

Hermione, my dear'st, thou never spokest 
To better purpose. 

Herm. Never ? 

Leon. Never, but once. 

Herm. What ! have I twice said well ? when was't before ? 
I pr'ythee tell me. 

Leon. Why, that was when 

Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death, 
Ere I could make thee open thy white hand, 
And clap thyself my love : then didst thou utter, 
I'm yours for ever. 

There is, I think, a relish of suppressed bitterness in this last 
speech, as if her long reluctance had planted in him a germ 
of doubt whether, after all, her heart was really in her words 
of consent. For the Queen is a much deeper character than 
her husband. It is true, these notices, and various others, 
drop along so quiet and unpronounced, as hardly to arrest the 
reader's attention. Shakespeare, above all other men, delights 
in just such subtile insinuations of purpose ; they belong in- 
deed to his usual method of preparing for a given issue, yet 
doing it so slyly as not to preclude surprise when the issue 
comes. 

So that in his seeming abruptness Leontes, after all, does 
but exemplify the strange transformations which sometimes 
occur in men upon sudden and unforeseen emergencies. 
And it is observable that the very slightness of the Queen's 
indiscretion, the fact that she goes but a little, a very little 
too far, only works against her, causing the King to suspect 
her of great effort and care to avoid suspicion. And on the 
same principle, because he has never suspected her before, 
therefore he suspects her all the more vehemently now : that 
his confidence has hitherto stood unshaken, he attributes to 



1 8 THE WINTER'S TALE. 

extreme artfulness on her part ; _for even so to an ill-disposed 
mind perfect innocence is apt to give an impression of con- 
summate art. A passion thus groundless and self-generated 
might well be full-grown as soon as born. The more greedy 
and craving, too, that it has nothing real to eat ; it therefore 
proceeds at once to "make the meat it feeds on," causing 
him to magnify whatever he sees, and to imagine many things 
that are not. That jealousy, however, is not the habit of his 
mind, appears in that it finds him unprepared, and takes him 
by surprise ; insomuch that he forthwith loses all self-control, 
and runs right athwart the rules of common decency and 
decorum, so that he becomes an object at once of pity, of 
hatred, and scorn. 

I think the Poet hardly anywhere shows a keener and jus- 
ter insight of nature than in the behaviour of this man while 
the distemper is upon him. He is utterly reason-proof, and 
indeed acts as one literally insane. For the poison infects 
not only his manners, but his very modes of thought : in fact, 
all his rational and imaginative forces, even his speech and 
language, seem to have caught the disease. And all the 
loathsome filth which had settled to the bottom of his nature 
is now shaken up to the surface, so that there appears to be 
nothing but meanness and malignity and essential coarseness 
in him. Meanwhile an instinctive shame of his passion and 
a dread of vulgar ridicule put him upon talking in dark rid- 
dles and enigmas : hence the confused, broken, and disjointed 
style, an odd jumble of dialogue and soliloquy, in which he 
tries to jerk out his thoughts, as if he would have them known, 
and yet not have them known. I believe men generally credit 
themselves with peculiar penetration when they are in the 
act of being deluded, whether by themselves or by others. 
Hence, again, the strange and even ludicrous conceit in which 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

Leontes wraps himself. " Not noted, is't," says he, referring 
to the Queen's imaginary crime, 

not noted, is't, 
But of the finer natures ? by some severals 
Of head-piece extraordinary ? lower messes, 
Perchance, are to this business purblind. 

Thus he mistakes his madness for a higher wisdom, and 

clothes his delusion with the spirit of revelation ; so that 

Camillo rightly says, 

You may as well 
Forbid the sea for to obey the Moon 
As or by oath remove or counsel shake 
The fabric of his folly, whose foundation 
Is piled upon his faith. 

I must note one more point of the delineation. When 
Leontes sends his messengers to Delphos, he avows this as 
his reason for doing so : 

Though I am satisfied, and need no more 
Than what I know, yet shall the Oracle 
Give rest to th' minds of others. 

Which means simply that he is not going to let the truth of 
the charge stand in issue, and that he holds the Divine au- 
thority to be a capital thing, provided he may use it, and 
need not obey it ; that is, if he finds the god agreeing with 
him in opinion, then the god's judgment is infallible ; if not, 
then, in plain terms, he is no god. And they who have 
closely observed the workings of jealousy know right well 
that in all this Shakespeare does not one whit " overstep the 
modesty of Nature." 

The Poet manages with great art to bring Leontes off from 
the disgraces of his passion, and repeal him home to our 
sympathies, which had been freely drawn to him at first by 
his generosity of friendship. To this end, jealousy is repre- 



20 THE WINTER S TALE. 

sented as his only fault, and this as a sudden freak, which 
passes on directly into a frenzy, and whips him quite out of 
himself, temporarily overriding his characteristic qualities, 
but not combining with them ; the more violent for being 
unwonted, and the shorter-lived for being violent. In his 
firm, compact energy of thought and speech, after his pas- 
sion has cleared itself, and in his perennial flow of repentance 
after his bereavement, are displayed the real tone and tex- 
ture of his character. We feel that, if his sin has been great, 
his suffering is also great, and that if he were a greater sinner, 
his suffering would be less. Quick, impulsive, headstrong, he 
admits no bounds to anger or to penitence ; condemns him- 
self as vehemently as he does others \ and will spend his life 
in atoning for a wrong he has done in a moment of passion : 
so that we are the more willing to forgive him, inasmuch as 
he never forgives himself. 

Hermione. 

The old poets seem to have contemplated a much wider 
range of female excellence than it has since grown custom- 
ary to allow ; taking for granted that whatsoever we feel to 
be most divine in man might be equally so in woman ; and 
so pouring into their conceptions of womanhood a certain 
ma?ili?iess of soul, wherein we recognize an union of what is 
lovely with what is honourable, — such a combination as 
would naturally inspire any right-minded man at the same 
time with tenderness and with awe. Their ideas of delicacy 
did not preclude strength : in the female character they were 
rather pleased than otherwise to have the sweetness of the 
violet blended with the grandeur of the oak ; probably be- 
cause they saw and felt that woman might be big-hearted and 
brave-minded, and yet be none the less womanly ; and that 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

love might build all the higher and firmer for having its foun> 
dations laid deep in respect. This largeness of heart and lib- 
erality of thought often comes out in their writings, and that 
too whether in dealing with ideal or with actual women ; which 
suggests that in what they chose to create they were a good 
deal influenced by what they were accustomed to see. For, 
in a thing that works so much from the sympathies, it could 
hardly be but that they reflected the mind and spirit of their 
age. Of this the aptest illustration that my reading has lighted 
upon is in Ben Jonson's lines on the Countess of Bedford, 
describing "what kind of creature I could most desire to 
honour, serve, and love " : 

I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise, 
Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great ; 
I meant the day-star should not brighter rise, 
Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat : 
I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet, 
Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride; 
I meant each softest virtue there should meet, 
Fit in that softer bosom to reside : 
Only a learned and a manly soul 
I purposed her ; that should with even powers 
The rock, the spindle, and the shears control 
Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours. 

That Shakespeare fully shared in this magnanimous 
bravery of sentiment, we need no further proof than is fur- 
nished in the heroine of this play. We can scarce call 
Hermione sweet or gentle, though she is both ; she is a 
noble woman, — one whom, even in her greatest anguish, 
we hardly dare to pity. The whole figure is replete with 
classic grace, is shaped and finished in the highest style of 
classic art. As she acts the part of a statue in the play, so 
she has a statue-like calmness and firmness of soul. A 
certain austere and solid sweetness pervades her whole de- 



22 THE WINTERS TALE. 

meanour, and seems, as it were, the essential form of her life. 
It is as if some masterpiece of ancient sculpture had warmed 
and quickened into life from its fulness of beauty and ex- 
pression. 

Appearing at first as the cheerful hostess of her husband's 
friend, and stooping from her queenly elevation to the most 
winning affabilities, her behaviour rises in dignity as her 
sorrow deepens. With an equal sense of what is due to 
the King as her husband, and to herself as a woman, a 
wife, and a mother, she knows how to reconcile all these 
demands ; she therefore resists without violence, and sub- 
mits without weakness. And what her wise spirit sees to 
be fit and becoming, that she. always has strength and steadi- 
ness of character to do : hence, notwithstanding the insults 
and hardships wantonly put upon her, she still preserves the 
smoothnesses of peace ; is never betrayed into the least sign 
of anger or impatience or resentment, but maintains, through- 
out, perfect order and fitness and proportion in act and 
speech : the charge, so dreadful in itself, and so cruel in its 
circumstances, neither rouses her passions, as it would Pau- 
lina's, nor stuns her sensibilities, as in the case of Desde- 
mona ; but, like the sinking of lead in the ocean's bosom, it 
goes to the depths without ruffling the surface of her soul. 
Her situation is indeed full of pathos, — a pathos the more 
deeply-moving to others, that it stirs no tumults in her ; for 
her nature is manifestly fitted up and furnished with all tender 
and gentle and womanly feelings ; only she has the force of 
mind to control them, and keep them all in the right place 
and degree. "They are the patient sorrows that touch 
nearest." And so, under the worst that can befall, she 
remains within the region of herself, calm and serenely 
beautiful, stands firm, yet full of grace, in the austere strengths 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

of reason and conscious rectitude. And when, at her terrible 
wrongs and sufferings, all hearts are shaken, all eyes wet, but 
her own, the impression made by her stout-hearted fortitude 
is of one whose pure, tranquil, deep-working breast is the 
home of sorrows too big for any eye-messengers to report : 

Calm pleasures there abide, majestic pains. 

The delineation keeps the same tone and texture through 
all its parts, but the sense of it is specially concentrated in 
what she says when the King winds up his transport of in- 
sane fury by ordering her off to prison : 

Good my lords, 
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex 
Commonly are ; the want of which vain dew 
Perchance shall dry your pities ; but I have 
That honourable grief lodged here which burns 
Worse than tears drown. 'Beseech you all, my lords, 
With thoughts so qualified as your charities 
Shall best instruct you, measure me ; and so, 
The King's will be perform'd ! — 'Beseech your Highness, 
My women may be with me ; for, you see, 
My plight requires it. — Do not weep, good fools ; 
There is no cause : when you shall know your mistress 
Has deserved prison, then abound in tears 
As I come out. — ... Adieu, my lord : 
I never wish'd to see you sorry ; now, 
I trust, I shall. 

And her character is answerably reflected in the minds of 
the King's chief counsellors, whose very swords seem stirring 
with life in the scabbards, and yearning to leap forth and 
vindicate the honour of their beloved Queen, but that awe 
of the crown restrains them. 

Her last speech at the trial is, I am apt to think, the sol- 
idest piece of eloquence in the language. It is like a piece 
of the finest statuary marble, chiselled into perfect form; so 



24 THE WINTER S TALE. 

compact of grain, that you cannot crush it into smaller 
space ; while its effect is as wholesome and bracing as the 
atmosphere of an iced mountain when tempered by the Sum- 
mer sun. The King threatens her with death, and she 
replies, 

Sir, spare your threats : 
The bug which you would fright me with I seek. 
To me can life be no commodity : 
The crown and comfort of my life, your favour, 
I do give lost ; for I do feel it gone, 
But know not how it went : my second joy, 
And first-fruits of my body, from his presence 
I'm barr'd like one infectious : my third comfort, 
Starr'd most unluckily, is from my breast, 
The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth, 
Haled out to murder : myself on every post 
Proclaim'd a strumpet ; with immodest hatred, 
The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs 
To women of all fashion : lastly, hurried 
Here to this place, i' the open air, before 
I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege, 
Tell me what blessings I have here alive, 
That I should fear to die. Therefore, proceed. 
But yet hear this ; - mistake me not : My life, 
I prize it not a straw ; but for mine honour, 
Which I would free, if I shall be condemn'd 
Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else 
But what your jealousies awake, I tell you, 
'Tis rigour, and not law. 

Noble simplicity of the olden time, when the best and 
purest of women, with the bravest men in presence, thought 
no shame to hear themselves speaking such plain honest 
words as these ! 

The Queen's long concealing of herself has been censured 
by some as repugnant to nature. Possibly they may think 
it somewhat strained and theatrical, but it is not so : the 
woman is but true to herself, in this matter, and to the solid 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

and self-poised repose in which her being dwells. So that 
the thing does not seem repugnant to nature as individualized 
by her reason and will; nor is her character herein more 
above or out of nature than the proper ideal of art abun- 
dantly warrants. For to her keen sensibility of honour the 
King's treatment is literally an infinite wrong; nor does its 
cruelty more wound her affection, than its meanness alien- 
ates her respect ; and one so strong to bear injury might well 
be equally strong to remember it. Therewithal she knows 
full well that, in so delicate an instrument as married life, if 
one string be out of tune the whole is ajar, and will yield no 
music : for her, therefore, all things must be right, else none 
are so. And she is both too clear of mind and too upright 
of heart to put herself where she cannot be precisely what the 
laws of propriety and decorum require her to seem. Accord- 
ingly, when she does forgive, the forgiveness is simply per- 
fect ; the breach that has been so long a-healing is at length 
completely healed ; for to be whole and entire in whatever she 
does, is both an impulse of nature and a law of conscience 
with her. When the King was wooing her, she held him off 
three months, which he thought unreasonably long ; but the 
reason why she did so is rightly explained when, for his in- 
expressible sin against her, she has locked herself from his 
sight sixteen years, leaving him to mourn and repent. More- 
over, with her severe chastity of principle, the reconciliation to 
her husband must begin there where the separation grew. Thus 
it was for Perdita to restore the parental unity which her being 
represents, but of which she had occasioned the breaking. 

Such is Hermione, in her " proud submission," her " digni- 
fied obedience/ ' with her Roman firmness and integrity of 
soul, heroic in strength, heroic in gentleness, the queenliest 
of women, the womanliest of queens. She is perhaps the 



26 THE WINTER'S TALE. 

Poet's best illustration of the great principle, which I fear 
is not so commonly felt as it should be, that the highest 
beauty always has an element or shade of the terrible in it, 
so that it awes you while it attracts. 

Paulina. 

If I prove honey-mouth'd, let my tongue blister, 
And never to my red-look'd anger be 
The trumpet any more. 

Good Queen, my lord, good Queen ; I say, good Queen, 
And would by combat make her good, so were I 
A man, the worst about you. 

For ever 
Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou 
Takest up the Princess by that forced baseness 
Which he has put upon't. 

Such are some of the words that boil over from the stout 
heart of Paulina, — the noblest and most amiable terma- 
gant we shall anywhere find, — when, with the new-born 
babe in charge, she confronts the furious King. He threat- 
ens to have her burnt, and she replies instantly, 

I care not : 
It is an heretic that makes the fire, 
Not she which burns in't. 

If her faults were a thousand times greater than they are, I 
could pardon them all for this one little speech ; which 
proves that Shakespeare was, I will not say a Protestant, but 
a true Christian, intellectually at least, and far deeper in the 
spirit of his religion than a large majority of the Church's 
official organs were in his day, or, let me add, have been 
any day since. And this was written, be it observed, at a 
time when the embers of the old ecclesiastical fires were not 
yet wholly extinct, and when many a priestly bigot was de- 



INTRODUCTION. 2*J 

ploring the lay ascendency which kept them from being 
rekindled. 

Paulina makes a superb counterpart to Hermione, height- 
ening the effect of her character by the most emphatic con- 
trast, and at the same time reflecting it by her intense and 
outspoken sympathy. Without any of the Queen's digni- 
fied calmness and reserve, she is alive to all her inward 
beauty and greatness : with a head to understand and a 
heart to reverence such a woman, she unites a temper to 
fight, a generosity to die for her. But no language but her 
own can fitly measure the ardour with which she loves and 
admires and even adores her " dearest, sweetest mistress," 
whose power has indeed gone all through her, so that every 
part of her nature cannot choose but speak it, when the oc- 
casion kindles her. Loud, voluble, violent, and viraginous, 
with a tongue sharper than a sword, and an eloquence that 
fairly blisters where it hits, she has, therewithal, too much 
honour and magnanimity and kind feeling either to use them 
without good cause, or to forbear using them at all hazards 
when she has such cause. Mrs. Jameson classes her, and 
justly, no doubt, among those women — and she assures us 
there are many such — who seem regardless of the feelings 
of those for whom they would sacrifice their life. 

" I thought she had some great matter there in hand \ for 
she hath privately, twice or thrice a day, ever since the 
death of Hermione, visited that removed house." Such is 
the speech of one gentleman to another, as the royal party 
and all the Court are going to Paulina's house to see the 
mysterious workmanship of Julio Romano. Nothing could 
better suggest the history of that quiet, placid intercourse, 
with its long record of patient, self-rewarding service ; a 
fellowship in which little needed to be said, for each knew 



28 THE WINTER^ TALE. 

what was in the other's mind by a better language than 
words. It is such an idea of friendship as it does the heart 
good to rest upon. Just think of those two great manly 
souls, enshrined in womanly tenderness, thus communing 
together in secret for sixteen long years ! And what a pow- 
erful charm of love and loyalty must have been cast upon 
Paulina's impulsive tongue, that she should keep so reticent 
of her dear cause through all that time ! To play the woman 
after that fashion would not hurt any of us. 

The Fourth and Fifth Acts. 

During the first three Acts the interest of this play is 
mainly tragic ; the scene is densely crowded with incidents ; 
the action hurried, abrupt, almost spasmodic ; the style quick 
and sharp, flashing off point after point in brief, sinewy 
strokes ; and all is rapidity and despatch : what with the 
insane fury of the King, the noble agony of the Queen, the 
enthusiasm of the Court in her behalf, and the King's violence 
towards both them and her, the mind is kept on the jump : 
all which, if continued to the end, would generate rather a 
tumult and hubbub in the thoughts, than that inward music 
which the title of the play promises ; not to say, that such a 
prolonged hurry of movement would at length become 
monotonous and wearisome. Far otherwise the latter half of 
the play. Here the anticipations proper to a long, leisurely 
winter evening are fully met ; the general effect is soothing 
and composing; the tones, dipped in sweetness, fall gently 
on the ear, disposing the mind to be still and listen and con- 
template ; thus making the play, as Coleridge describes it, 
" exquisitely respondent to the title." It would seem, indeed, 
that in these scenes the Poet had specially endeavoured how 
much of silent effect he could produce, without diverging 



INTRODUCTION. 2g 

from the dramatic form. To this end, he provides resting- 
places for thought ; suspending or retarding the action by 
musical pauses and periods of lyrical movement, and breath- 
ing-in the mellowest strains of poetical harmony, till the eye 
is "made quiet by the power of beauty," and all tumult of 
mind is hushed in the very intensity of feeling. 

In the last two Acts we have a most artful interchange and 
blending of romantic beauty and comic drollery. The lost 
Princess and the heir-apparent of Bohemia, two of the noblest 
and loveliest beings that ever fancy conceived, occupy the 
centre of the picture, while around them are clustered rustic 
shepherds and shepherdesses amid their pastimes and pur- 
suits, the whole being enlivened by the tricks and humours of 
a merry pedler and pickpocket. For simple purity and 
sweetness, the scene which unfolds the loves and characters 
of the Prince and Princess is not surpassed by any thing in 
Shakespeare. Whatsoever is enchanting in romance, lovely 
in innocence, elevated in feeling, and sacred in faith, is here 
concentrated; forming, all together, one of those things 
which we always welcome as we do the return of Spring, and 
over which our feelings may renew their youth for ever. So 
long as flowers bloom and hearts love, they will do it in the 
spirit of this scene. 

It is a pastoral frolic, where free thoughts and guileless 
hearts rule the hour, all as true and pure as the tints and 
fragrances with which field and forest and garden have 
beautified the occasion. The neighbouring swains and lasses 
have gathered in, to share and enhance the sport. The old 
Shepherd is present, but only as a looker-on, having for the 
nonce resigned the command to his reputed daughter. 
Under their mutual inspiration, the Prince and Princess are 
each in the finest rapture of fancy, while the surrounding 



30 THE WINTER S TALE. 

iufluences of the rustic festival are just enough to enfranchise 
their inward music into modest and delicate utterance. He 
has tastefully decked her person with flowers, till no traces of 
the shepherdess can be seen, and she seems herself a multi- 
tudinous flower ; having also attired himself " with a swain's 
wearing," so that the prince is equally obscured. 

These your unusual weeds to each part of you 
Do give a life : no shepherdess ; but Flora, 
Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing 
Is as a meeting of the petty gods, 
And you the queen on't. 

Thus he opens the play. And when she repeats her fears of 
the event : 

Thou dearest Perdita, 
With these forced thoughts, I pr'ythee, darken not 
The mirth o* the feast : or I'll be thine, my fair, 
Or not my father's ; for I cannot be 
Mine own, nor any thing to any, if 
I be not thine : to this I am most constant, 
Though destiny say no. 

The King and Camillo steal upon them in disguise, and 
while they are present we have this : 

Perdita. Come, take your flowers : 

Methinks I play as I have seen them do 
In Whitsun pastorals : sure, this robe of mine 
Does change my disposition. 

Florizel. What you do 

Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet, 
I'd have you do it ever : when you sing, 
I'd have you buy and sell so ; so give alms ; 
Pray so ; and, for the ordering your affairs, 
To sing them too : when you do dance, I wish you 
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do 
Nothing but that ; move still, still so, and own 
No other function. Each your doing is 
So singular in each particular, 



INTRODUCTION. 3 1 

Crowning what you have done i' the present deed, 
That all your acts are queens. 

Perdita. O Doricles ! 

Your praises are too large : but that your youth, 
And the true blood that peeps so fairly through't, 
Do plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd, 
With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles, 
You woo'd me the false way. 

Florizel. I think you have 

As little skill to fear as I have purpose 
To put you to't. But come ; our dance, I pray. 

Polix. This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever 
Ran on the green-sward : nothing she does or seems 
But smacks of something greater than herself,- — 
Too noble for this place. 

Camil. He tells her something 

That makes her blood look out : good sooth, she is 
The queen of curds and cream. 

Polix. 'Pray you, good shepherd, what fair swain is this 
Which dances with your daughter ? 

Shep. They call him Doricles ; and boasts himself 
To have a worthy feeding : I but have it 
Upon his own report, and I believe it ; 
He looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter : 
I think so too ; for never gazed the Moon 
Upon the water, as he'll stand, and read, 
As't were, my daughter's eyes : and, to be plain, 
I think there is not half a kiss to choose 
Who loves another best. 

Polix. She dances featly. 

Shep. So she does any thing, though I report it, 
That should be silent. 

The Princess. 

Perdita, notwithstanding she occupies so little room in the 
play, fills a large space in the reader's thoughts, almost dis- 
puting precedence with the Queen. And her mother's best 
native qualities reappear in her, sweetly modified by pastoral 
associations ; her nature being really much the same, only it 



32 THE WINTER S TALE. 

has been developed and seasoned in a different atmosphere ; 
a nature too strong indeed to be displaced by any power of 
circumstances or supervenings of art, but at the same time 
too delicate and susceptive not to take a lively and lasting 
impress of them. So that, while she has thoroughly assimilat- 
ed, she nevertheless clearly indicates, the food of place and 
climate, insomuch that the dignities of the princely and the 
simplicities of the pastoral character seem striving which shall 
express her goodliest. We can hardly call her a poetical 
being ; she is rather poetry itself, and every thing lends and 
borrows beauty at her touch. A playmate of the flowers, 
when we see her with them, we are at a loss whether they 
take more inspiration from her or she from them ; and while 
she is the sweetest of poets in making nosegays, the nosegays 
become in her hands the richest of crowns. If, as Schlegel 
somewhere remarks, the Poet is " particularly fond of showing 
the superiority of the innate over the acquired," he has surely 
nowhere done it with finer effect than in this unfledged angel. 
There is much to suggest a comparison of Perdita and 
Miranda ; yet how shall I compare them ? Perfectly dis- 
tinct indeed as individuals, still their characters are strik- 
ingly similar ; only Perdita has perhaps a sweeter grace- 
fulness, the freedom, simplicity, and playfulness of nature 
being in her case less checked by external restraints ; while 
Miranda carries more of a magicial and mysterious charm 
woven into her character from the supernatural influences 
of her whereabout. So like, yet so different, it is hard 
saying which is the better of the two, or rather one can 
hardly help liking her best with whom he last conversed. 
It is an interesting fact also, for such it seems to be, that 
these two glorious delineations were produced very near to- 
gether, perhaps both the same year; and this too when 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

Shakespeare was in his highest maturity of poetry and 
wisdom ; from which it has been not unjustly argued that 
his experience both in social and domestic life must have 
been favourable to exalted conceptions of womanhood. The 
Poet, though in no sort a bigot, was evidently full of loyal 
and patriotic sentiment; and I have sometimes thought 
that the government of Elizabeth, with the grand national 
enthusiasm which clustered round her throne and person, 
may have had a good deal to do in shaping and inspiring 
this part of his workmanship. Be that as it may, with but 
one great exception, I think the world now finds its best 
ideas of moral beauty in Shakespeare's women. 

The Prince. 

Florizel's character is in exquisite harmony with that of 
the Princess. To be sure, it may be said that if he is 
worthy of her, it is mainly her influence that makes him so. 
But then it is to be observed, on the other hand, that as 
in such cases men find only what they bring the faculties for 
finding, so the meeting with her would not have elicited such 
music from him, had not his nature been originally responsive 
to hers. For he is manifestly drawn and held to her by a 
powerful instinct of congeniality. And none but a living ab- 
stract and sum-total of all that is manly could have so felt the 
perfections of such a woman. The difference between them 
is, that she was herself before she saw him, and would have 
been the same without him ; whereas he was not and could 
not be himself, as we see him, till he caught inspiration from 
her ; so that he is but right in saying, 

I bless the time 
When my good falcon made her flight across 
Thy father's ground. 



34 THE WINTER S TALE. 

Nevertheless it is a clear instance of the pre-established 
harmony of souls : but that his spirit were akin to hers, he 
could not have recognized his peer through such a disguise 
of circumstances. For any one to be untouched and un- 
sweetened by the heavenly purity of their courtship, were 
indeed a sin almost too great to be forgiven. 

Shakespeare knew, — none better, — that in order to be 
a lover in any right sense of the term, one must first be a 
man. He therefore does not leave the Prince without an 
opportunity to show that he is such. And it is not till 
after the King has revealed himself, and blown up the mirth 
of the feast by his explosion of wrath, that the Prince dis- 
plays his proper character in this respect. I need not stay 
to remark how well the Poet orders the action for that 
purpose ; suffice it to say that the Prince then fully makes 
good his previous declaration : 

Were I crown'd the most imperial monarch, 
Thereof most worthy ; were I the fairest youth 
That ever made eye swerve ; had force and knowledge 
More than was ever man's ; I would not prize them, 
Without her love ; for her employ them all ; 
Commend them, or condemn them, to her service, 
Or to their own perdition. 



Autolycus and Camillo. 

The minor characters of this play are both well conceived 
and skilfully disposed, the one giving them a fair personal, 
the other a fair dramatic interest. The old Shepherd and his 
clown of a son are near, if not in, the Poet's happiest comic 
vein. Autolycus, the " snapper-up of unconsidered trifles," 
is the most amiable and ingenious rogue we should desire 
to see ; who cheats almost as divinely as those about him 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

love, and whose thieving tricks the very gods seem to 
crown with thrift in reward of his wit. His self-raillery 
and droll soliloquizing give us the feeling that his sins are 
committed not so much for lucre as for fun. — The Poet 
was perhaps a little too fond of placing his characters in 
situations where they have to be false in order to be the 
truer ; which no doubt sometimes happens ; yet, surely, in 
so delicate a point of morality, some care is needful, lest 
the exceptions become too much for the rule. And some- 
thing too much of this there may be in the honest, upright, 
yet deceiving old lord, Camillo. I speak this under cor- 
rection ; for I know it is not safe to fault Shakespeare's 
morals ; and that they who affect a better morality than his 
are very apt to turn out either hypocrites or moral coxcombs. 
As for the rest, this Camillo, though little more than a staff 
in the drama, is nevertheless a pillar of State ; his integ- 
rity and wisdom making him a light to the counsels and 
a guide to the footsteps of the greatest around him. Fit 
to be the stay of princes, he is one of those venerable 
relics of the past which show us how beautiful age can 
be, and which, linking together different generations, form 
at once the salt of society and the strength of govern- 
ment. 



THE WINTER'S TALE. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Sicilian Lords. 



Clown, his Son. 
Servant to the old Shepherd. 
Autolycus, a Rogue. 
Time, as Chorus. 



Leontes, King of Sicilia. 
Mamillius, his Son. 
Camillo, 
Antigonus, 
Cleomenes, 
Dion, 

Rogero, a Sicilian Gentleman. 
Officers of a Court of Judicature. 
Polixenes, King of Bohemia. 
Florizel, his Son. 
Archidamus, a Bohemian Lord. 
A Mariner. 
A Jailer. 

An old Shepherd. 
Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, and Attendants ; Satyrs for a Dance 
herds, Shepherdesses, Guards, &c. 

SCENE. — Sometimes in Sicilia, sometimes in Bohemia. 



Hermione, Queen to Leontes. 
Perdita, Daughter to Leontes and 

Hermione. 
Paulina, Wife to Antigonus. 
Emilia, a Lady attending on the 

Queen. 
Mopsa, 
Dorcas, 



Shep- 



' \ Shepherdesses. 
AS, i 



ACT I. 



Scene I. — Sicilia. 



An Antechamber in the Palace of 
Leontes. 



Enter Camillo and Archidamus. 

Arch. If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on 
the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you 
shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia 
and your Sicilia. 



38 the winter's TALE. ACT I. 

Cam. I think, this coming Summer, the King of Sicilia 
means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes 
him. 

Arch. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will 
be justified in our loves ; l for, indeed, — 

Ca?n. Beseech you, — 

Arch. Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge : 
we cannot with such magnificence — in so rare — I know not 
what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks, that your 
senses, unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they 
cannot praise us, as little accuse us. 

Cam. You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely. 

Arch. Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs 
me, and as mine honesty puts it to utterance. 

Cam. Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia. 
They were trained together in their childhoods ; and there 
rooted betwixt them then such an affection which 2 cannot 
choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities 
and royal necessities made separation of their society, their 
encounters, though not personal, have been royally attor- 
neyed 3 with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies ; 
that they have seem'd to be together, though absent ; shook 
hands, as over a vast ; 4 and embraced, as it were, from the 
ends of opposed winds. The Heavens continue their love ! 

1 " In so far as our entertainment falls short, we will make up the defi- 
ciency with our love." 

2 Instead of which, the usage of our time would require as in this place. 
But in Shakespeare's time the demonstratives this, that, and such, and also 
the relatives which, that, and as, were often used indiscriminately. 

3 Attorneyed is done by deputy or representative, as a man is represented 
by his attorney in a lawsuit. — That, in the next clause, has the force of so 
that, or insomuch that ; a frequent usage with the Poet. 

4 Vast is here used in much the same sense as in Ha?nlet, i. 2: " In the 



SCENE II. THE WINTER S TALE. 39 

Arch, I think there is not in the world either malice or 
matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your 
young Prince Mamillius : it is a gentleman of the greatest 
promise that ever came into my note. 5 

Cam. I very well agree with you in the hopes of him : it 
is a gallant child; one that, indeed, physics the subject, 6 
makes old hearts fresh : they that went on crutches ere he 
was born desire yet their life to see him a man. 

Arch. Would they else be content to die ? 

Cam. Yes ; if there were no other excuse why they should 
desire to live. 

Arch. If the King had no son, they would desire to live 
on crutches till he had one. [Exeunt. 



Scene II. — The Same. A Room of State in the Palace. 

Enter Leontes, Polixenes, Hermione, Mamillius, Camillo, 
and Attendants. 

Polix. Nine changes of the watery star l have been 
The shepherd's note since we have left our throne 
Without a burden : time as long again 

dead vast and middle of the night." So in Paradise Lost, vi. 203 : " Through 
the vast of Heaven it sounded, and the faithful armies sung hosanna to the 
Highest." See TheTempest, page 66, note 81. 

5 " Come within my notice or knowledge." The Poet has note repeatedly 
in this sense. So in King Lear, iii. 1 : " Sir, I do know you ; and dare, upon 
the warrant of my note," &c. 

6 Physic, verb, was formerly used for to heal or make healthy. Medicine 
is still used in like manner ; as in Cymbeline, iv. 2 : " Great griefs, I see, 
medicine the less." — Subject here bears the sense of subjects, the singular for 
the plural. See Hamlet, page 49, note 17. 

1 The watery star is the Moon ; probably called watery from her connec- 
tion with the tides. And the meaning is, simply, that the shepherd hath 



40 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT i 

Would be fill'd up, my brother, with our thanks ; 

And yet we should, for perpetuity, 

Go hence in debt : and therefore, like a cipher, 

Yet standing in rich place, I multiply 

With one we-thank-you many thousands more 

That go before it. 

Leon. Stay your thanks awhile, 

And pay them when you part. 2 

Polix. Sir, that's to-morrow. 

I'm question'd by my fear of what may chance 
Or breed upon our absence : may there blow 
No sneaping winds at home, to make us say, 
This is put forth too truly ! 3 Besides, I've stay'd 
. To tire your royalty. 

Leon. We are tougher, brother, 

Than you can put us to't. 

Polix. No longer stay. 

Leon. One seven-night longer. 

Polix. Very sooth, 4 to-morrow. 

Leon. We'll part the time between's, then : and in that 
I'll no gainsaying. 

Polix. Press me not, beseech you, so. 

There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' the world, 



noted, or seen, nine changes of the Moon. The " nine changes " are, I 
think, beyond question, nine Iwiar months, though some explain it nine 
weeks. But I doubt whether the quarterings of the Moon were called 
changes. And if the time had been but nine weeks, it is not likely that 
Leontes would speak, as he afterwards does, touching Perdita. 

2 Part for depart. The two were used interchangeably. 

3 That is, " this fear of mine has too much cause " ; this presage is too 
true. — Sneaping is biting or nipping. 

4 Very sooth is in real truth. Both words are often used thus, especially 
the latter. And so soothsayer originally meant truth-speaker. 



SCENE II. THE WINTER S TALE. 4 1 

So soon as yours, could win me : so it should now, 

Were there necessity in your request, although 

'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs 

Do even drag me homeward : which to hinder, 

Were, in your love, a whip to me ; my stay, 

To you a charge and trouble : to save both, 

Farewell, our brother. 

Leon. Tongue-tied, our Queen ? speak you. 

Herm. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until 
You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir, 
Charge him too coldly. Tell him, you are sure 
All in Bohemia's well ; this satisfaction 
The by-gone day proclaim'd : say this to him, 
He's beat from his best ward. 5 

Leon. Well said, Hermione. 

Herm. To tell, he longs to see his son, were strong : 
But let him say so then, and let him go ; 
But let him swear so, and he shall not stay, 
We'll thwack him hence with distaffs. — 
\To Polix.] Yet of your royal presence I'll adventure 
The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia 
You take my lord, I'll give you my commission 
To let him there a month behind the gest 6 
Prefix'd for's parting : — yet, good deed, Leontes, 
I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind 
What lady e'er her lord. 7 — You'll stay? 

5 To ward is to guard ; and the substantive was often used for place or 
posture of defence. See The Tempest, page 74, note 104. 

6 To let had for its synonymes to stay or stop ; to let him there is to stay 
him there. Gests were scrolls in which were marked the stages or places 
of rest in a progress or journey, especially a royal one. 

7 " Ajar o* the clock " is a tick o' the clock ; jar being at that time often 
used for tick. — Behind is here equivalent to less than ; and " what lady e'er " 



42 THE WINTER S TALE. ACT I. 

Polix. No, madam. 

Herm. Nay, but you will? 

Polix. I may not, verily. 

Herm. Verily ! 
You put me off with limber vows ; but I, 
Though you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths, 
Should yet say, Sir, no going. Verily, 
You shall not go : a lady's verily is 
As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet? 
Force me to keep you as a prisoner, 
Not like a guest ; so you shall pay your fees 
When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you ? 
My prisoner, or my guest? by your dread verily, 
One of them you shall be. 

Polix. Your guest, then, madam : 

To be your prisoner should import offending ; 
Which is for me less easy to commit 
Than you to punish. 

Herm. Not your jailer, then, 

But your kind hostess. Come, I'll question you 
Of my lord's tricks and yours when you were boys : 
You were pretty lordings then ? 

Polix. We were, fair Queen, 

Two lads that thought there was no more behind 
But such a day to-morrow as to-day, 
And to be boy eternal. 

Her 7?i. Was not my lord the verier wag o' the two ? 

Polix. We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the 
sun, 

means whatever lady. The language is elliptical ; the full sense being, " not 
a jot less than any lady whatever loves her lord." We have a like expres- 
sion in Richard II., v. 3 : " How heinous e'er it be." 



SCENE II. the winter's tale. 43 

And bleat the one at th' other : what we changed 8 

Was innocence for innocence ; we knew not 

The doctrine of ill-doing, no, nor dream'd 

That any did. Had we pursued that life, 

And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd 

With stronger blood, we should have answer'd Heaven 

Boldly, not guilty ; th' imposition clear'd 

Hereditary ours. 9 

Herni. By this we gather 

You have tripp'd since. 

Polix. O my most sacred lady, 

Temptations have since then been born to's ; for 
In those unfledged days was my wife a girl ; 
Your precious self had then not cross'd the eyes 
Of my young playfellow. 

Herni. God's grace to boot ! 10 

Of this make no conclusion, lest you say 
Your Queen and I are devils : yet, go on ; 
Th' offences we have made you do, we'll answer ; 
If you first sinn'd with us, and that with us 
You did continue fault, and that you slipp'd not 
With any but with us. 

Leon. Is he won yet? 

Herni. He'll stay, my lord. 

Leon. At my request he would not. 

Hermione, my dear'st, thou never spokest 
To better purpose. 

8 Changed for exchanged or interchanged. So in Hamlet, i. 2 : " Sir, my 
good friend ; I'll change that name with you." 

9 " Setting aside or striking off the stain of original sin which we have 
inherited." Referring of course to " Man's first disobedience." 

10 The proper meaning of boot is help, profit, or advantage. So in iii. 2 : 
11 It shall scarce boot me to say, Not guilty ." 



44 THE WINTER S TALE. ACT I. 

Herm. Never? 

Leon. Never, but once. 

Herm. What ! have I twice said well? when was't before? 
I pr'ythee tell me ; cramj£ with praise, and make's 
As fat as tame things 4jf§ne good deed dying tongueless 
Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that, i^^" 
Our praises are our wages : you may ride's 
With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs, ere 
With spur we heat an acre. 11 But to th' goal : 
My last good deed was to entreat his stay : 
What was my first ? it has an elder sister, 
Or I mistake you : O, would her name were Grace ! 
But once before I spoke to th' purpose : when ? 
Nay, let me have't ; I long. 

Leon. Why, that was when 

Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death, 
Ere I could make thee open thy white hand, 
And clap 12 thyself my love : then didst thou utter, 
Tm yours for ever. 

Herm. It is Grace indeed. — 

Why, lo you now, I've spoke to th' purpose twice : 
The one for ever earn'd a royal husband ; 
Th' other for some while a friend. [ Giving her hand to Polix. 

Leon. [Aside. ,] Too hot, too hot ! 

11 To " heat an acre " is doubtless the same as to run an acre ; just as, in 
the language of the race-ground, a three-mile heat is a race of three miles. 
Mr. Joseph Crosby, in a letter to me, justly observes that " the accompany- 
ing words, ' to th' goal,' show that the metaphor is from the race-course." 
And he adds that " heat is not simply the distance run, but the sporting-term 
for the race itself; ' winning the heat,' ' running the heat,' &c." 

12 On entering into any contract, or plighting of troth, this clapping of 
hands together set the seal. So in the old play of Ram Alley : " Come, clap 
hands, a match." The custom is not yet disused in common life. 



SCENE II. THE WINTER S TALE. 45 

To mingle friendship far, is mingling bloods. 
I've tremor cordis on me, — my heart dances ; 
But not for joy, — not joy. This entertainment 
May a free face put on ; derive a liberty 
From heartiness, from bounty's fertile bosom, 
And well become the agent ; 't may, I grant : 
But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers, 
As now they are ; and making practised smiles, 
As in a looking-glass ; and then to sigh, as 'twere 
The mort o' the deer ; 13 O, that is entertainment 
My bosom likes not, nor my brows ! — Mamillius, 
Art thou my boy ? 

Mam. Ay; my good lord. 

Leon. I'fecks ! 

Why, that's my bawcock. 14 What, hast smutch'd thy nose? 
They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, captain, 
We must be neat ; not neat, but cleanly, captain : 
And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf, 
Are all call'd neat. — [ Observing Polixenes and Hermione. 

Still virginalling 15 
Upon his palm ? — How now, you wanton calf ! 
Art thou my calf? 

Mam. Yes, if you will, my lord. 



13 The mort was a long note played on the horn at the death of the deer. 
Mort is the French word for death ; from the Latin mors. 

14 A burlesque word of endearment supposed to be derived from beau- 
coq, or boy-cock. It occurs in Twelfth Night, and in King He?iry V., and in 
both places is coupled with chuck or chick. It is said that bra! cock is still 
used in Scotland. — F fecks is probably a corruption of in faith. 

15 Still playing with her fingers as a girl playing on the virginals. Vir- 
ginals were stringed instruments played with keys like a spinnet, which they 
resembled in all respects but in shape, spinnets being nearly triangular, and 
virginals of an oblong square shape like a small piano-forte. 



4.6 the winter's TALE. ACT I. 

Leoii. Thou want'st a rough pash, and the shoots that I 
have, 16 
To be full like me. — [Aside.'] Yet they say we are 
Almost as like as eggs ; women say so, 
That will say any thing : but were they false 
As o'er-dyed blacks, 17 as winds, as waters ; false 
As dice are to be wish'd by one that fixes 
No bourn 18 'twixt his and mine ; yet were it true 
To say this boy were like me. — Come, sir page, 
Look on me with your welkin eye : 19 sweet villain ! 
Most dear'st ! my collop ! 20 — Can thy dam ? — may 't be ? — 

16 Pash is said to mean, in some places, a young bull-calf whose horns 
are just sprouting. According to Jamieson, it is a Scotch term for head. 
The sense of the text is, apparently, " To be altogether like me, thou must 
have the knobby forehead and the budding horns that I have." 

17 O'er-dyed blacks means old faded stuffs of whatever colour dyed black. 
Under the word false there is probably an allusion to those who practised 
mourning as a sort of art, and kept certain articles of dress for that purpose, 
such as hat-bands and gloves, which, being dyed over repeatedly, not only 
became rotten, but were also regarded as badges of a hypocritical or simu- 
lated sorrow. The text is well illustrated in Massinger's Old Law, ii. i : 

I would not hear of blacks, I was so light, 

But chose a colour orient like my mind: 

For blacks are often such dissembling- mourners, 

There is no credit given to't; it has lost 

All reputation by false sons and widows. 

Now I would have men know what I resemble, 

A truth, indeed; 'tis joy clad like a joy; 

Which is more honest than a cunning grief, 

That's only faced with sables for a show, 

But gaudy-hearted. 

18 That is, makes no distinction. Bourn is limit or boundary; as in 
Hamlet's soliloquy : " The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn no 
traveller returns." 

19 Welkin is blue, the colour of the welkin or sky. 

20 This use of collop is well explained in one of Heywood's Epigrams, 
1566 : " For I have heard saie it is a deere collup that is cut out of thy owne 



SCENE II. THE WINTER S TALE. 47 

Affection, thy intention stabs the centre ! 21 

Thou dost make possible, things not so held ; 

Communicatest with dreams, — how can this be ? — 

With what's unreal thou coactive art, 

And fellow'st nothing : then 'tis very credent 22 

Thou mayst co-join with something • and thou dost, 

And that beyond commission, (as I find it,) 

Ay, even to the infection of my brains 

And hardening of my brows. 23 

flesh." Shakespeare has it again in / King Henry VI., v. 4 : " God knows 
thou art a collop of my flesh." The sense of the word is now expressed in 
the phrase, " a chip of the old block." 

21 After a great deal of thought spent upon this line, I have tied up in the 
following : Affection here means what the old moralists called carnal con- 
cupiscence, or, in a word, lust. So in Troilus and Cressida, ii. 2 : " What 
nearer debt in all humanity than wife is to the husband? if this law of Na- 
ture be corrupted through affection" &c. — Intention is intenseness, energy, 
pervasive force. — Centre is the Earth, which was held to be literally the 
centre of the visible Universe. And so I understand Leontes to mean that 
the potency of sexual desire is universal ; that it penetrates everywhere, and 
pervades the whole world. 

22 Credent for credible ; an instance of the active form with the passive 
sense. See As You Like It, page 96, note 4. 

23 A very obscure passage, and hard to explain ; naturally made so, from 
the Saint- Vitus dance of agitation into which Leontes here works himself, and 
from a kind of self-shame instinctively prompting him to obscure or dis- 
guise his thoughts while giving vent to them. The best I can do with it is 
something as follows : After referring to the potency of sexual desire as ex- 
plained in note 21, Leontes proceeds to descant on sundry workings of that 
potency: it achieves things that are deemed impossible; gives life to 
dreams; shapes imaginations; cooperates with unrealities; has commerce 
with things that are not ; and is so like a planetary influence, that even what 
passes for angelic purity may not be proof against it. If it can do all these 
wonders, then he concludes that, in the person of his wife, it can certainly 
fellowship an actual object, and conspire with the answering motions of 
another person ; and if this can be, then it is, and he is sure of it ; and the 
fact is so working in his head as to cause a sprouting of horns. See Criti- 
cal Notes. 



48 the winter's TALE. act I. 

Polix. What means Sicilia? 

Herni. He something seems unsettled. 

Polix. Ho, my lord ! 

What cheer? how is't with you, best brother? 

Herm. You look 

As if you held a brow of much distraction : 
Are you not moved, my lord? 

Leon. No, in good earnest. 

How sometimes nature will betray its folly, 
Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime 
To harder bosoms ! Looking on the lines 
Of my boy's face, methought I did recoil 
Twenty-three years ; and saw myself unbreech'd, 
In my green velvet coat ; my dagger muzzled, 
Lest it should bite its master, and so prove, 
As ornaments oft do, too dangerous : 
How like, methought, I then was to this kernel, 
This squash, 24 this gentleman. — Mine honest friend, 
Will you take eggs for money ? 25 

Mam. No, my lord, I'll fight. 

Leon. You will? why, happy man be's dole! 26 — My 
brother, 
Are you so fond of your young Prince as we 
Do seem to be of ours ? 

Polix. If at home, sir, 

He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter : 

24 Squash is an immature pea-pod. In Twelfth Night, we have " As a 
squash before it is a peascod." 

25 A proverbial phrase for putting up with an affront or insult. The 
Prince evidently so understands it. It was sometimes used for any cowardly 
conduct. 

26 A common phrase in old writers, meaning " May happiness be his lot 
or portion ! " 



SCENE II. THE WINTER S TALE. 49 

Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy ; 
My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all : 
He makes a July's day short as December's ; 
And with his varying childness cures in me 
Thoughts that would thick my blood. 

Leon. So stands this squire 

Officed with me. We two will walk, my lord, 
And leave you to your graver steps. — Hermione, 
How thou lovest us, show in our brother's welcome ; 
Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap : 
Next to thyself and my young rover, he's 
Apparent 27 to my heart. 

Herm. If you would seek us, 

We're yours i' the garden : shall's attend you there ? 

Leon. To your own bents dispose you : you'll be found, 
Be you beneath the sky. — [Aside. ~\ I'm angling now, 
Though you perceive me not how I give line. 
Go to, go to ! [ Observing Polixenes and Hermione. 

How she holds up the neb, 28 the bill to him ! 
And arms her with the boldness of a wife 
To her allowing 29 husband ! — 

[Exeunt Polix., Herm., and Attend. 
Gone already ! 
Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a fork'd one ! 30 — ■ 
Go, play, boy, play : — thy mother plays, and I 
Play too ; but so disgraced a part, whose issue 



27 That is, heir-apparent, next claimant, or nearest kin. 

28 Neb is beak, bill, or nose. So " meeting noses," later in this scene. 

29 Allowing is approving. Such is often the meaning of to allow in old 
writers. See Twelfth Night, page 34. note 7. 

80 " A fork'd one " is one having his brow forked with horns. Allusions 
to this occur ad nauseam. See page 46, note 16. 



50 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT I. 

Will hiss me to my grave : contempt and clamour 

Will be my knell. — Go, play, boy, play. — Should all despair 

That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind 

Would hang themselves. Many thousand on's 

Have the disease, and feel't not. — How now, boy ! 

Mam. I am like you, they say. 

Leon. Why, that's some comfort. — 

What, Camillo there ? 

Cain. Ay, my good lord. 

Leon. Go, play, Mamillius ; thou'rt an honest man. — 

[Exit Mamillius. 
Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer. 

Cam. You had much ado to make his anchor hold : 
When you cast out, it still came home. 

Leon. Didst note it? 

Cam. He would not stay at your petitions ; made 
His business more material. 

Leon. Didst perceive it? — 

[Aside. ~\ They're here with me already ; 31 whispering, rounding, 
Sicilia is a — so-forth : 'tis far gone, 
W 7 hen I shall gust it last. 32 — How came't, Camillo, 
That he did stay? 

Cam. At the good Queen's entreaty. 

Leon. At the Queen's be't : good should be pertinent ; 
But, so it is, it is not. Was this taken 
By any understanding pate but thine ? 



31 " They are already azvare of my dishonour" ; they referring not to 
Polixenes and Hermione, but to the people about the Court. — Rounding is 
much the same as muttering. To round one in the ear, was a common 
phrase. 

32 " The knowledge of my disgrace has spread far and wide, since I am 
the last to find it out." Gust for taste ; as in disgust. 



SCENE II. THE WINTERS TALE. 5 1 

For thy conceit 33 is soaking, will draw in 
More than the common blocks : not noted, is't, 
But of the finer natures ? by some severals 
Of head-piece extraordinary ? lower messes 34 
Perchance are to this business purblind? say. 

Cam. Business, my lord ! I think most understand 
Bohemia stays here longer. 

Leon. Ha ! 

Cam. Stays here longer. 

Leon. Ay, but why? 

Cam. To satisfy your Highness, and th' entreaties 
Of our most gracious mistress. 

Leon. Satisfy 

Th' entreaties of your mistress ! — satisfy ! 
Let that suffice. I've trusted thee, Camillo, 
With all the near'st things to my heart, 35 as well 
My chamber-councils ; wherein, priest-like, thou 
Hast cleansed my bosom \ I from thee departed 
Thy penitent reform'd : but we have been 
Deceived in thy integrity, deceived 
In that which seems so. 

Cam. Be't forbid, my lord ! 

33 Coiiceit was always used in a good sense, and with reference to the 
faculties of thought generally : judgment, understanding, &c. 

34 Messes is here put for degrees, conditions. The company at great 
tables were divided according to their rank into higher and lower messes. 
Sometimes the messes were served at different tables, and seem to have been 
arranged in fours, whence the word came to express four in vulgar speech. 

— Of course Leontes in his self-delusion is mightily puffed up with a conceit 
of his own superior insight and sagacity. 

35 " The things nearest to my heart." Such transpositions arc frequent. 

— In what follows, as well has the force of as well as. Often so. " Cham- 
ber counsels" are official consultations held in the King's Council- 
chamber. 



52 THE WINTERS TALE. ACT I. 

Leon. To bide upon't, 36 thou art not honest ; or, 
If thou inclinest that way, thou art a coward, 
Which hoxes 37 honesty behind, restraining 
From course required ; or else thou must be counted 
A servant grafted in my serious trust, 
And therein negligent - or else a fool 
That see'st a game play'd home, 38 the rich stake drawn, 
And takest it all for jest. 

Cam. My gracious lord, 

I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful ; \ 

In every one of these no man is free, 
But that his negligence, his folly, fear, 
Among the infinite doings of the world, 
Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord, 
If ever I were wilful-negligent, 
It was my folly ; if industriously 
I play'd the fool, it was my negligence, 
Not weighing well the end ; if ever fearful 
To do a thing, where I the issue doubted, 
Whereof the execution did cry out 
Against the non-performance, 39 'twas a fear 
WHiich oft infects the wisest : these, my lord, 
Are such allow' d infirmities that honesty 

36 This phrase means " it is my fixed opinion." So in Beaumont and 
Fletcher's King a.7id no King, iv. 3 : " Captain, thou art a valiant gentleman ; 
to bide upo?it, a very valiant man." 

37 To hox is to hamstring. The proper form of the word is hough. 

3S Home, adverb, is to the utmost, thoroughly, or to the quick. So we have 
" strike her home" " pay us home," " satisfy me home," and many others. 

39 An obscure passage, but probably meaning, " the non-performance of 
which was matter of regret or blame afterwards, when the reasons for doing 
it became evident." So the event often proves that it were better to have 
done things that were left undone. In that case, the advantage of having 
gone ahead may be said to reprove the holding back. 



SCENE IT. THE WINTERS TALE. 53 

Is never free of. But, beseech your Grace, 
Be plainer with me ; let me know my trespass 
By its own visage : if I then deny it, 
'Tis none of mine. 

Leon, Ha' not you seen, Camillo, — 

But that's past doubt, you have \ or heard, — 
For, to a vision so apparent, rumour 
Cannot be mute ; or thought, — for cogitation 
Resides not in that man that does not think't, — 
My wife is slippery ? If thou wilt confess, — ■ 
Or else be impudently negative, 
To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought, — then say 
My wife's a hobby-horse : 40 say't, and justify't. 

Cam. I would not be a stander-by to hear 
My sovereign mistress clouded so, without 
My present vengeance taken : 'shrew my heart, 42 
You never spoke what did become you less 
Than this ; which to reiterate were sin 
As deep as that, though true. 43 

Leon. Is whispering nothing? 

Is leaning cheek to cheek ? is meeting noses ? 
Kissing with inside lip ? stopping the career 
Of laughter with a sigh ? — a note infallible 
Of breaking honesty ; — horsing foot on foot ? 
Skulking in corners ? wishing clocks more swift ? 
Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes else 



40 Hobby-hoi-se was applied in contempt to frivolous or licentious persons 
of cither sex. 

42 " Beskrew me " was a common imprecation ; equivalent to confound 
me, or plague take me. 

43 "To reiterate your accusation of the Queen were as deep a sin as that 
you charge her with, even though she be guilty of it." 



54 THE WINTER S TALE. ACT I. 

Blind with the pin-and-web, 44 but theirs, theirs only, 
That would unseen be wicked? is this nothing? 
Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing ; 
The covering sky is nothing ; Bohemia nothing ; 
My wife is nothing ; nor nothing have these nothings, 
If this be nothing. 

Cam. Good my lord, be cured 

Of this diseased opinion, and betimes ; 
For 'tis most dangerous. 

Leon. Say it be, 'tis true. 

Cam. No, no, my lord. 

Leon. It is ; you lie, you lie : 

I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee ; 
Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave ; 
Or else a hovering temporizer, 45 that 
Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil, 
Inclining to them both : were my wife's liver 
Infected as her life, she would not live 
The running of one glass. 

Cam. Who does infect her? 

Leon. Why, he that wears her like a medal hanging 
About his neck, Bohemia ; who, — if I 
Had servants true about me, that bare eyes 
To see alike mine honour as their profits, 
Their own particular thrifts, — they would do that 
Which should undo more doing : ay, and thou, 
His cupbearer, — whom I from meaner form 

44 The pin-and-web is the cataract in an early stage. 

45 A hovering temporizer is a wavercr, or, in our language, a waiter upon 
Providence ; one who sits astride the fence, watching the chances, or the 
setting of the current, and at last takes the side where " thrift may follow 
fawning." 



SCENE II. THE WINTERS TALE. 55 

Have bench'd, 46 and rear'd to worship ; who mayst see 
Plainly, as Heaven sees Earth, and Earth sees Heaven, 
How I am gall'd, — thou mightst bespice a cup, 
To give mine enemy a lasting wink ; 
Which draught to me were cordial. 

Cam. Sir, my lord, 

I could do this, and that with no rash 47 potion, 
But with a lingering dram, that should not work 
Maliciously like poison : but I cannot 
Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress, 
So sovereignly being honourable. 48 
I have loved thee, — 

Leon. Make that thy question, and go rot ! 

Dost think I am so muddy, so unsettled, 
T' appoint myself in this vexation, 
Give scandal to the blood o' the Prince my son, — 
Who I do think is mine, and love as mine, — 
Without ripe moving to't ? Would I do this ? 
Could man so blench ? 49 

Cam. I must believe you, sir': 

I do ; and will fetch off Bohemia for't ; 
Provided that, when he's removed, your Highness 

46 Meaner form is lower seat, place, or rank ; and the meaning is, 
"whom I have raised from a lower bench to a higher." So classes in 
schools were numbered according to the forms, or benches, whereon they 
sat. The Poet has forms repeatedly so. 

47 Rash here means swift or sudden , the idea being of a poison that acts 
so slowly as to be unperceived and unsuspected. 

48 The meaning probably is, " she being so supremely honourable " ; or, 
it may be, "she being so perfect in queenly honour." — In the next speech, 
when Leontes says " Make that thy question," he evidently refers to Hermi- 
one's alleged disloyalty, the crack which Camillo cannot admit. 

4 ' J To blench is to start aside, to fly off, or to shrink; and the meaning is, 
'* Could any man so start or fly off from propriety of behaviour? 



56 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT I. 

Will take again your Queen as yours at first, 
Even for your son's sake ; and thereby for sealing 
The injury of tongues in Courts and kingdoms 
Known and allied to yours. 

Leon, Thou dost advise me 

Even so as I mine own course have set down : 
I'll give no blemish to her honour, none. 

Cain, My lord, 
Go then ; and with a countenance as clear 
As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia 
And with your Queen. I am his cupbearer : 
If from me he have wholesome beverage, 
Account me not your servant. 

Leon, This is all : 

Do't, and thou hast the one half of my heart ; 
Do't not, thou splitt'st thine own. 

Cam. I'll do't, my lord. 

Leon, I will seem friendly, as thou hast advised me. \_Exit 

Cam. O miserable lady ! — But, for me, 
What case stand I in ? I must be the poisoner 
Of good Polixenes : and my ground to do't 
Is the obedience to a master ; one 
Who, in rebellion with himself, will have 
All that are his so too. To do this deed, 
Promotion follows. If I could find example 
Of thousands that had struck anointed kings, 
And flourish'd after, I'd not do't ; but, since 
Nor brass nor stone nor parchment bears not one, 
Let villainy itself forswear't. I must 
Forsake the Court : to do't, or no, is certain 
To me a break-neck. Happy star reign now ! 
Here comes Bohemia. 



SCENE II THE WINTERS TALE. , ^^ K7 

Re-enter Polixenes. 

Polix. This is strange : methinks 

My favour here begins to warp. Not speak ? — 
Good day, Camillo. 

Cam. Hail, most royal sir ! 

Polix. What is the news i' the Court? 

Cam. None rare, my lord. 

Polix. The King hath on him such a countenance 
As he had lost some province, and a region 
Loved as he loves himself : even now I met him 
With customary compliment ; when he, 
Wafting his eyes to th' contrary, and falling 
A lip of much contempt, speeds from me ; and 
So leaves me to consider. What is breeding, 
That changes thus his manners ? 

Cam. I dare not know, my lord. 

Polix. How ! dare not ! — do not ? Do you know, and 
dare not 
Be intelligent to me ! 'Tis thereabouts ; 50 
For, to yourself, what you do know, you must, 
And cannot say you dare not. Good Camillo, 
Your changed complexions are to me a mirror, 
Which shows me mine changed too ; for I must be 
A party in this alteration, finding 
Myself thus alter'd with't. 

Cam. There is a sickness 

Which puts some of us in distemper ; but 
I cannot name the disease \ and it is caught 
Of you that yet are well. 

50 " Such, or something such, is the true interpretation of your language." 
— " lie intelligent" here means give intelligence. 



58 the winter's TALE. ACT I. 

Polix. How ! caught of me ! 

Make me not sighted like the basilisk : 51 
I've look'd on thousands, who have sped the better 
By my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo, — 
As you are certainly a gentleman ; thereto 
Clerk-like, experienced, which no less adorns 
Our gentry than our parents' noble names, 
In whose success we're gentle, 52 — I beseech you, 
If you know aught which does behove my knowledge 
Thereof to be inform'd, imprison't not 
In ignorant concealment. 

Cam. I may not answer. 

Polix. A sickness caught of me, and yet I well ! 
I must be answer'd. Dost thou hear, Camillo ? 
I c6njure 53 thee, by all the parts of man 
Which honour does acknowledge, — whereof the least 
Is not this suit of mine, 54 — that thou declare 
What incidency thou dost guess of harm 

51 Shakespeare has many allusions to this old fabulous serpent, which 
was said to have the power of killing by its look, or of darting deadly venom 
from its eyes. Cockatrice was another name of the beast. See Twelfth 
Night, page 103, note 15. 

62 " In whose succession, or by succession from whom, we are well-boj-n, 
or inherit our nobility of rank." So both success and gentle were often 
used; the latter being opposed to simple, or low-dom. — Clerk-like is 
learned or scholarly ; scholar being the proper meaning of clerk. 

53 In Shakespeare's time, conjure, in the sense of earnestly request, was 
pronounced with the accent on the first or the second syllable, indifferently ; 
the two ways of pronunciation not having become appropriated to the dif- 
ferent senses of the word. 

54 Some obscurity again. Whereof refers to parts ; parts means duties, 
claims, or rights ; and the order of the words according to the sense is, 
" whereof this suit of mine is not the least " ; that is, not the least of all the 
claims of man which honour does acknowledge. — Incidency is contingency 
or likelihood ; what is likely to happen or befall. 



SCENE II. 



THE WINTER S TALE. 59 



Is creeping toward me ; how far off, how near • 
Which way to be prevented, if to be ; 
If not, how best to bear it. 

Cam. Sir, I'll tell you ; 

Since I am charged in honour, and by him 
That I think honourable : therefore mark my counsel, 
Which must be even as swiftly follow 'd as 
I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me 
Cry lost, and so good night ! 

Polix. On, good Camillo. 

Cam. I am appointed him 55 to murder you. 

Polix. By whom, Camillo ? 

Cam* By the King. 

Polix. For what ? 

Cam. He thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears, 
As he had seen't, or been an instrument 
To vice 56 you to't, that you have touch'd his Queen 
Forbiddenly. 

Polix. O, then my best blood turn 

To an infected jelly, and my name 
Be yoked with his 57 that did betray the Best ! 

55 Am appointed the one, or the man, apparently. 

56 Vice is commonly explained as meaning to force ; the word being used 
of any engine worked by a screw. This explanation is certainly counte- 
nanced by a passage in Twelfth Night, v. 1 : " Since you to non-regardance 
cast my faith, and that I partly know the instrument that screws me from 
my true place in your favour," &c. Another explanation may be, that vice 
is here used in the sense of to tempt, to corrupt, to vitiate. Mr. Joseph 
Crosby thinks it may be " that the Poet here purposely employed the word 
vice as possessing a double propriety, implying not only ' as though he had 
been an instrument to urge you to it,' but ' had been a vicious instrument, 
viciously to screw you up, or impel you along, to the commission of this 
crime.' " 

67 Judas. A clause in the sentence of excommunicated persons was, 
" let them have part with Judas that betrayed Christ." 



60 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT L 

Turn then my freshest reputation to 
A savour that may strike the dullest nostril 
Where I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd, 
Nay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection 
That e'er was heard or read ! 

Cain. Swear this thought over 

By each particular star in heaven and 
By all their influences, you may as well 
Forbid the sea for to obey the Moon, 
As or by oath remove, or counsel shake, 
The fabric of his folly ; whose foundation 
Is piled upon his faith, and will continue 
The standing of his body. 

Polix. How should this grow? 

Cam. I know not : but I'm surei 'tis safer to 
[/ Avoid what's grown than question how 'tis born. ^ 
If, therefore, you dare trust my honesty, — 
That lies enclosed in this trunk, which you 
Shall bear along impawn' d, — away to-night ! 
Your followers I will whisper to the business ; 
And will, by twos and threes, at several posterns, 
Clear them o' the city : for myself, I'll put 
My fortunes to your service, which are here 
By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain ; 
For, by the honour of my parents, I 
Have utter'd truth : which if you seek to prove, 
I dare not stand by ; nor shall you be safer 
Than one condemn'd by th' King's own mouth, thereon 
His execution sworn. 

Polix. I do believe thee : 

I saw his heart in's face. Give me thy hand : 



SCENE II. 



THE WINTER'S TALE. 6l 



Be pilot to me, and thy places 58 shall 
Still neighbour mine. My ships are ready, and 
My people did expect my hence -departure 
Two days ago. This jealousy of his 
Is for a precious creature : as she's rare, 
Must it be great ; and, as his person's mighty, 
Must it be violent ; and as he does conceive 
He is dishonour'd by a man which ever 
Profess'd to him, why, his revenges must 
In that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me : 
Good expedition be my friend, and nothing 
The gracious Queen, Part of his theme, discomfort 
Of his ill-ta'en suspicion ! 59 Come, Camillo ; 
I will respect thee as a father, if 
Thou bear'st my life off hence : let us avoid. 
Cam. It is in mine authority to command 
The keys of all the posterns : please your Highness 
To take the urgent hour : come, sir, away. [Exeunt. 

58 Places clearly means offices or honours. Polixenes means that Camillo 
shall be placed near him, or in the highest offices under him. 

59 The meaning seems to be, " May a speedy departure befriend me, and 
nowise discomfort the Queen in respect of his groundless suspicion ! " 
Polixenes is apprehensive, as he well may be, that his flight will confirm the 
jealousy of Leontes, and so add to the sufferings of the Queen. And such 
is indeed the effect of the " good expedition " that rescues him from danger. 
Shakespeare often uses nothing simply as a strong negative, equivalent to 
nowise or not at all. He also repeatedly uses 0/with the force of in respect 
of. See Critical Notes. 



62 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT II. 

ACT II. 

Scene I. — Sicilia. A Room in the Palace, 
Enter Hermione, Mamillius, and Ladies. 

Herm. Take the boy to you : he so troubles me, 
'Tis past enduring. 

i Lady, Come, my gracious lord, 

Shall I be your playfellow? 

Mam. No, I'll none of you. 

i Lady. Why, my sweet lord ? 

Mam. You'll kiss me hard, and speak to me as if 
I were a baby still. — I love you better. 

2 Lady. And why so, my lord ? 

Mam. Not for because 

Your brows are blacker ; yet black brows, they say, 
Become some women best, so that there be not 
Too much hair there, but in a semicircle, 
Or a half-moon made with a pen. 

2 Lady. Who taught ye this ? 

Mam. I learn'd it out of women's faces. — Pray now 
What colour are your eyebrows ? 

i Lady. Blue, my lord. 

Mam. Nay, that's a mock : I've seen a lady's nose 
That has been blue, but not her eyebrows. 

Herm. Come, sir, now 

I am for you again : pray you, sit by us, 
And tell's a tale. 

Mam. Merry or sad shall 't be ? 



SCENE I. THE WINTER'S TALE. 63 

Herm. As merry as you will. 

Mam. A sad tale's best for Winter : I have one 
Of sprites and goblins. 

Herm. Let's have that, good sir. 

Come on, sit down : come on, and do your best 
To fright me with your sprites ; you're powerful at it. 

Mam. There was a man, — 

Herm. Nay, come, sit down ; then on. 

Mam. — Dwelt by a churchyard : — I will tell it softly ; 
Yond crickets shall not hear it. 

Herm. Come on, then, 

And give't me in mine ear. 

Enter Leontes, Antigonus, Lords, and Guards. 

Leon. Was he met there ? his train ? Camillo with him ? 

1 Lord. Behind the tuft of pines I met them ; never 
Saw I men scour so on their way : I eyed them 
Even to their ships. 

Leon. How blest am I 

In my just censure, 1 in my true opinion ! 
Alack, for lesser knowledge ! 2 how accursed 
In being so blest ! There may be in the cup 
A spider 3 steep'd, and one may drink, depart, 
And yet partake no venom ; for his knowledge 
Is not infected : but, if one present 
Th' abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known 
How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides, 

1 Censure is judgment in old language. This use of the word is well 
instanced in Fletcher's Elder Brother, i. 2 : " Should I say more, you well 
might censure me a flatterer." 

' 2 " O that my knowledge were less ! " 

3 Spiders were commonly thought poisonous in Shakespeare's time ; a 
belief not altogether extinct even now. 



64 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT II. 

With violent hefts : 4 I've drunk, and seen the spider.^ 

Camillo was his help in this, his pander : 

There is a plot against my life, my crown ; 

All's true that I mistrusted : that false villain 

Whom I employ'd was pre-employ'd by him : 

He has discover'd my design, and I 

Remain a pinch 'd thing ■ 5 yea, a very trick 

For them to play at will. — How came the posterns 

So easily open ? 

1 Lord, By his great authority ; 

Which often hath no less prevail'd than so, 
On your command. 

Leon. I know't too well. — 

Give me the boy : I'm glad you did not nurse him : 
Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you 
Have too much blood in him. 

Herm. What is this? sport? 

Leon. Bear the boy hence ; he shall not come about her ; 
Away with him ! — \Exit Mamillius with some of the Guards. 

You, my lords, 
Look on her, mark her well ; be but about 
To say, She is a goodly lady, and 
The justice of your hearts will thereto add, 
' Tis pity she's not honest-honourable : 
Praise her but for this her without-door form, — 
Which, on my faith, deserves high speech, — and straight 



4 Hefts is heavings ; the strainings of nausea. — Gorge is throat or gullet. 
So in Hamlet, v. 1 : " And now how abhorred in my imagination it is ! my 
gorge rises at it." 

5 Pinctid thing probably signifies a puppet ; puppets being moved or 
played by pinching them. Leontes means that others are making game of 
him, and sporting themselves in his dishonour. 



SCENE I. 



THE WINTER'S TALE. 6$ 



The shrug, the hum, or ha, — these petty brands 
That calumny doth use ; — O, lam out, 
That mercy does ; for calumny will sear 6 
Virtue itself; — these shrugs, these hums and ha's, 
When you have said she's goodly, come between, 
Ere you can say she's honest: but be't known, 
From him that has most cause to grieve it should be, 
She's an adultress. 

Herni. Should a villain say so, 

The most replenish'd villain in the world, 
He were as much more villain : you, my lord, 
Do but mistake. 

Leon. You have mistook, my lady, 

Polixenes for Leontes : O thou thing, 
Which I'll not call a creature of thy place, 
Lest barbarism, making me the precedent, 
Should a like language use to all degrees, 
And mannerly distinguishment leave out 
Betwixt the prince and beggar ! — I have said 
She's an adultress ; I have said with whom : 
More, she's a traitor ; and Camillo is 
A fedary 7 with her ; and one that knows, 
What she should shame to know herself 
But with her most vile principal. 8 

Herm. How will this grieve you, 

When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that 
You thus have publish'd me ! Gentle my lord, 

6 Sear has the sense of brands, second line before. The image is of burn- 
ing marks upon the person with a hot iron. 

7 Fedary for confederate, partner, or accomplice. Repeatedly so. 

8 One that knows what she would be ashamed to know herself, even if 
the knowledge of it were shared but wit/i her paramour. 



66 the winter's tale. 



ACT II. 



You scarce can right me throughly 9 then, to say 
You did mistake. 

Leon. No, no ; if I mistake 

In those foundations which I build upon, 
The centre 10 is not big enough to bear 
A schoolboy's top. — Away with her to prison ! 
He who shall speak for her's afar off guilty 
But that he speaks. 11 

Herm. There's some ill planet reigns : 

I must be patient till the Heavens look 
With an aspect more favourable. — Good my lords, 
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex 
Commonly are ; the want of which vain dew 
Perchance shall 12 dry your pities ; , but I have 
That honourable grief lodged here which burns 
Worse than tears drown : beseech you all, my lords, 
With thoughts so qualified as your charities 
Shall best instruct you, measure me ; : — and so 
The King's will be perform'd ! 

Leon. \_To the Guards.] Shall I be heard? 

Herm. Wlio is't that goes with me ? — Beseech your High- 
ness, 
My women may be with me \ for, you see, 

9 Throughly and thoroughly are but different forms of the same word. 
To be thorough in a thing, or to do a thing thoroughly, is to go through it. — 
To say is here an instance of the infinitive used gerundively, and so is 
equivalent to by saying, 

10 Centre here is the Earth, which the old astronomy regarded as literally 
the centre of the solar system. The Copernican astronomy was not re- 
ceived in England till many years later. See page 47, note 21. 

11 The mere act of speaking in her behalf makes the speaker remotely 
guilty of her crime. 

12 Shall where we should use will; the two being often used indiscrimi- 
nately in the Poet's time. Repeatedly so in this play. 



SCENE I. THE WINTER'S TALE. 6? 

My plight requires it. — Do not weep, good fools ; 13 

There is no cause : when you shall know your mistress 

Has deserved prison, then abound in tears 

As I come out : this action I now go on 

Is for my better grace. — Adieu, my lord : 

I never wish'd to see you sorry ; now 

I trust I shall. — My women, come ; you have leave. 

Leon. Go, do our bidding ; hence ! 

\_Exeunt Queen and Ladies, with Guards. 

i Lord. Beseech your Highness, call the Queen again. 

Ant. Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice 
Prove violence ; in the which three great ones suffer, 
Yourself, your Queen, your son. 

i Lord. For her, my lord, 

I dare my life lay down, and will do't, sir, 
Please you t' accept it, that the Queen is spotless 
I' the eyes of Heaven and to you ; I mean, 
In this which you accuse her. 

Ant. If it prove 

She's otherwise, I'll keep my stable where 
I lodge my wife ; 14 I'll go in couples with her ; 
Than when I feel and see her no further trust her ; 
For every inch of woman in the world, 
Ay, every dram of woman's flesh, is false, 
If she be. 

13 Fool was much used as a term of loving, or playful, familiarity. So, in 
King Lear, v. 3, the old King says of his Cordelia, when he brings her in 
dead, " And my poor fool is hang'd." 

14 The meaning of this passage has been much disputed. The Poet 
often uses to keep for to guard, to watch ; and such is no doubt the meaning 
here. Dr. Ingleby, in his Shakespeare Hermeneutics, says, and, I think, 
shows, that keeping one s stable was a familiar phrase in the Poet's time, 
meaning to keep personal watch over the fidelity of one's wife or one's mis- 



68 the winter's TALE. ACT II. 

Leon, Hold your peaces. 15 

i Lord. Good my lord, — 

Ant. It is for you we speak, not for ourselves : 
You are abused, and by some putter-on, 16 
That will be damn'd for it ; would I knew the villain, 
I would lant-dam him. 17 Be she honour-flaw 'd, — 
I have three daughters ; the eldest is eleven ; 
The second and the third, nine and some five ; 
If this prove true, they'll pay for't. 

Leon. Cease ; no more. 

You smell this business with a sense as cold 



tress. He aptly quotes from Much Ado, hi. 4 : " Then, if your husband have 
stables enough, you'll look he shall lack no barns" ; whereupon he remarks 
as follows : " Of course there is a pun on barns ; and there is a like pun on 
stables, which like barns had two meanings. When we know that stables 
was the condition precedent to bams, we have already pretty nearly deter- 
mined its cant meaning. But a man's stable may be kept by his wife, by 
himself, or by a third party : by the wife, if she be chaste ; by the husband, 
if he be suspicious ; by a third party, if she be unchaste and her husband be 
absent." Then, as an instance of the first, he quotes from Chapman's All 
Fools, iv. 2 : " But, for your wife that keeps the stable of your honour, let her 
be lockt in a brazen towre, let Argus himselfe keepe her, yet can you never 
bee secure of your honour." Of course Dr. Ingleby regards the passage in 
the text as an instance of the second. It is hardly needful to remark how 
well this explanation accords with the context. For so the meaning comes 
thus : " I will trust my wife no further than I can see her ; will myself, in 
my own person, keep watch and ward over her virtue, and not confide her to 
any other guardianship." See Critical Notes. 

15 Peaces where we should say peace. This use of the plural, when 
speaking to or of more than one person, was common in Shakespeare's 
time. So near the opening of this play : " We will be justified in our loves." 
And a little before in this scene : " Perchance shall dry your pities." 

1G A putter-on, as the word is here used, is an instigator. So the Foet 
repeatedly has to put on for to incite, to instigate, or to set on. — Here, as 
often, abused is cheated, deceived, ox practised icpo?i. 

17 Punishment by lant-dammi?ig would involve a peculiar sort of mutila- 
tion, and cause a slow and dreadful death. See Critical Notes. 



SCENE I. THE WINTER'S TALE. 69 

As is a dead man's nose : but I do see't and feel't, 

As you feel doing this, and see withal [ Grasping his arm. 

The instruments that you feel. 18 

Ant. If it be so, 

We need no grave to bury honesty : 
There's not a grain of it the face to sweeten 
Of the whole dungy Earth. 

Leon. What ! lack I credit? 

1 Lord. I had rather you did lack than I, my lord, 
Upon this ground ; and more it would content me 
To have her honour true than your suspicion, 
Be blamed for't how you might. 

Leon. Why, what need we 

Commune with you of this, but 19 rather follow 
Our forceful instigation ? 20 Our prerogative 
Calls not your counsels ; but our natural goodness 
Imparts this : which if you — or stupefied, 

18 " I see and feel my disgrace, as you now feel my doing this 'to you, and 
as you now see the instruments that you feel ; " that is, my fingers. 

19 Shakespeare has divers instances of but so used as to be hardly 
reducible under any general rules: often in the adversative sense, often in 
the exceptive ; and often with various shades of meaning lying between 
these two, and partaking, more or less, of them both. Here it seems to have 
the force of and not. Perhaps the instance nearest to this is in Richard III., 
ii. 1 : " Whenever Buckingham doth turn his hate upon your Grace, but 
with all duteous love doth cherish you and yours, God punish me with hate 
in those where I expect most love." Here the meaning seems to be " and 
doth not cherish." Sometimes, however, but seems to have the force of 
instead of. So, in the passage just quoted, the sense may well be instead of 
cherishing, &c. And so in the text, " instead of following rather," &c. A 
like use of the word occurs in Cymbeline, iii. 6: "Were you a woman, 1 
should woo hard but be your groom ; " that is, " rather than, not be your 
groom," or " rather than be any thing except your groom." 

20 Instigation is here to be taken in a good sense : " the strong prompting 
of our own judgment or understanding." 



JO THE WINTER S TALE. ACT IL 

Or seeming so in skill 21 — cannot or will not 
Relish as truth, like us, inform yourselves 
We need no more of your advice : the matter, 
The loss, the gain, the ordering on't, is all 
Properly ours. 

Ant. And I do wish, my liege, 

You had only in your silent judgment tried it, 
Without more overture. 22 

Leon. How could that be ? 

/ Either thou art most ignorant by age, 
Or thou wert born a fool. ] Camillo's flight, 
Added to their familiarity, — 
Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture, 23 
That lack'd sight only, nought for approbation 
But only seeing, all other circumstances 
Made up to th' deed, — doth push on this proceeding : 
Yet, for a greater confirmation, — 
For in an act of this importance 'twere 
Most piteous to be wild, — I have dispatch'd in post 24 
To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple, 
Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know 
Of stuff d sufriciency : 25 now, from the oracle 
They will bring all ; whose spiritual counsel had, 
Shall stop or spur me on. Have I done well? 

21 Skill in the sense of art, craft, or cumiing. 

22 Overture is disclosure, or publishment. So in King Lear, iii. 7 : "It 
was he that made the overture of thy treasons to us." 

23 To touch sometimes means to stir, to move, to rouse. So in King 
Lear, ii. 4 : " Touch me with noble anger." — Approbatio?i, in the next line, 
is proof or attestation. Repeatedly so. 

24 In post is in haste ; with the speed of a postman. 

25 That is, of full, ample, or complete ability. See Much Ado, page 25, 
note 8. 



SCENE II. THE WINTERS TALE. 7 1 

I Lord. Well done, my lord. 

Leon. Though I am satisfied, and need no more 
Than what I know, yet shall the oracle 
Give rest to th' minds of others ; 26 such as he 
Whose ignorant credulity will not 
Come up to th' truth. So have we thought it good 
From our free person she should be confined, 
Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence 
Be left her to perform. Come, follow us ; 
We are to speak in public ; for this business 
Will raise us all. 

Ant. [Aside.'] To laughter, as I take it, 
If the good truth were known. [_Exeunt. 

Scene II. — The Same. The outer Room of a Prison, 

Enter Paulina and Attendants. 

Paul. The keeper of the prison, call to him ; 
Let him have knowledge who I am. — [Exit an Attendant. 

Good lady ! 
No Court in Europe is too good for thee ; 
What dost thou, then, in prison ? — 

Re-enter Attendant, with the Jailer. 

Now, good sir, 
You know me, do you not? 
Jail. For a worthy lady, 

20 Observe, Leontes consults the oracle only for convincing others, not 
for correcting himself. And so, of course, he quarrels with the answer as 
Soon as he finds it against him : if the god agree with him in opinion, all 
right ; if not, then he is no god. 



J 2 THE WINTER 5 TALE. ACT II. 

And one who much I honour. 

Paul. Pray you. then, 

Conduct me to the Queen. 

Jail. I may not. madam : to the contrary 
I have express commandment. 

Paul. Here's ado, 

To lock up honest}- and honour from 
Th' access of gentle visitors ! Is't lawful, 
Pray you, to see her women ? any of them ? 
Emilia? 

Jail. So please you, madam, 
To put apart these your attendants. I 
Shall bring Emilia forth. 

Paul. I pray now call her. — 

Withdraw yourselves. [Exeunt Attend. 

Jail. And. madam, 

I must be present at your conference. 

Paul. Well, be't so. pr'ythee. — [Exit Jai 

Here's such ado to make no stain a stain, 
As passes colouring. 1 — 

Re-enter Jailer, with Emilia. 

Dear gentlewoman, 
How fares our gracious lady? 

Emit. As well as one so great and so forlorn 
May hold together : 2 on her frights and griefs, — 
Which never tender lady hath borne greater, — 

1 As defies paK is, -in one sense, to outstrip, to go beyond, 

to surpass. To colour often means to palliate, to disguise, to make specious. 

- An odd expression, but probably meaning " As well as is consistent 
with the state of one so high-minded and so desolate " ; or of one so high- 
placed and cast down so low. To hold together, to stand together, is to be 
consistent, and so to be possible. 



SCENE II. THE WINTER S TALE. 73 

She is, something before her time, deliver'd. 

Paul. A boy ? 

Emil. A daughter ; and a goodly babe, 

Lusty, and like to live : the Queen receives 
Much comfort in't; says, My poor prisoner, 
Tm innocent as you. 

Paul. I dare be sworn : 

These dangerous unsafe lunes 3 i' the King, beshrew them ! 
He must be told on't, and he shall : the office 
Becomes a woman best ; I'll take't upon me : 
If I prove honey-mouth'd, let my tongue blister, 
And never to my red-look'd anger be 
The trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia, 
Commend my best obedience to the Queen : 
If she dares trust me with her little babe, 
I'll show't the King, and undertake to be 
Her advocate to th' loud'st. We do not know 
How he may soften at the sight o' the child : 
The silence often of pure innocence 
Persuades, when speaking fails, h 

EmiL Most worthy madam, 

Your honour and your goodness is so evident, 
That your free undertaking cannot miss 
A thriving issue : there's no lady living 
So meet for this great errand. Please your ladyship 
To visit the next room, I'll presently 
Acquaint the Queen of your most noble offer ; 

8 Lunes, I believe, is not met with in any other English writer ; but is 
used in old French for fits of lunacy and mad freaks. It occurs again in 
The Merry Wives, iv. 2 : " Why, woman, your husband is in his old hates 
again." Also in Troilus and Cressida, ii. 3 : " Yea, watch his pettish lunes, 
his ebbs, his flows," &c. 



74 THE WINTER S TALE. ACT II. 

Who but to-day hammer'd of this design, 
But durst not tempt a minister of honour, 
Lest she should be denied. 

Paul. Tell her, Emilia, 

I'll use that tongue I have : if wit flow from't, 
As boldness from my bosom, let 't not be doubted 
I shall do good. 

Emil. Now be you bless'd for it ! 

I'll to the Queen : please you, come something nearer. 

Jail. Madam, if 't please the Queen to send the babe, 
I know not what I shall incur to pass it, 
Having no warrant. 

Paul. You need not fear it, sir : 

The child was prisoner to the womb, and is, 
By law and process of great Nature, thence 
Freed and enfranchised ; not a party to 
The anger of the King, nor guilty of, 
If any be, the trespass of the Queen. 

Jail. I do believe it. 

Paul. Do not you fear : upon mine honour, I 
Will stand 'twixt you and danger. [Exeunt. 



Scene III. — The Same. A Room in the Palace. 

Enter Leontes, Antigonus, Lords, and Attendants. 

Leon. Nor night nor day no rest : it is but weakness 
To bear the matter thus, mere weakness. If 
The cause were not in being, — part o' the cause, 
She the adultress ; for the harlot King 
Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank 



SCENE III. THE WINTERS TALE. 75 

And level of my brain, 1 plot-proof; — but she 
I can hook to me, 2 say that she were gone, 
Given to the fire, a moiety of my rest 
Might come to me again. — Who's there ? 

i Atten. [Advancing* .] My lord. 

Leon. How does the boy ? 

i Atten. He took good rest to-night ; 

'Tis hoped his sickness is discharged. 

Leon. To see his nobleness ! 
Conceiving the dishonour of his mother, 
He straight declined, droop'd, took it deeply, 
Fasten'd and fix'd the shame on't in himself, 
Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep, 
And downright languish'd. — Leave me solely ; go, 
See how he fares. [Exit i Attend.] — Fie, fie ! no thought 

of him ; 3 
The very thought of my revenges that way 
Recoil upon me : in himself too mighty, 
And in his parties, his alliance ; let him be, 
Until a time may serve : for present vengeance, 
Take it on her. Camillo and Polixenes 
Laugh at me, make their pastime at my sorrow : 
They should not laugh, if I could reach them ; nor 
Shall she, within my power. 

1 Blank is the white spot in the centre of the target ; and level is aim, 
direction, or reach. The language of archery or gunnery. 

2 That is, " she whom I have within my grasp or reach." Such ellipses 
of pronouns are very frequent. — Moiety \ next line, properly means half, but 
was used for part ox portion generally. 

3 Him refers to Polixenes. — The Poet's art is wisely apparent in repre- 
senting Leontes's mind as all disordered by jealousy into jerks and spasms. 
Collier informs us that Coleridge, in his lectures in 1815, "called this an 
admirable instance of propriety in soliloquy, where the mind leaps from one 
object to another, without any apparent interval." 



y6 the winter's TALE. act ii. 

Enter Paulina, with a Child. 

i Lord. You must not enter. 

Paul. Nay, rather, good my lords, be second to me : 
Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas, 
Than the Queen's life ? a gracious innocent soul, 
More free 4 than he is jealous. 

Ant. That's enough. 

2 Atten. Madam, he hath not slept to-night ; commanded 
None should come at him. 

Paul. Not so hot, good sir : 

I come to bring him sleep. I 'Tis such as you, — 
That creep like shadows by him, and do sigh 
At each his needless heavings, — such as you 
Nourish the cause of his awaking : I 
Do come, with words as med'cinal as true, 
Honest as either, to purge him of that humour 
That presses him from sleep. 

Leon. What noise there, ho ? 

Paul. No noise, my lord ; but needful conference 
About some gossips 5 for your Highness. 

Leon. How ! 

Away with that audacious lady ! — Antigonus, 
I charged thee that she should not come about me : 
I knew she would. 

Ant. I told her so, my lord, 

On your displeasure's peril and on mine, 
She should not visit you. 






4 In old language free often occurs in the sense of chaste, pure. So in 
Measure for Measure, i. 2 : " Whether thou art tainted ox free." 

5 Gossip is an old word for sponsor, or God-parent ; from God and sib, 
the latter meaning kin. A christening used to be a time for social jollity 
and good cheer ; hence grew the present meaning of the word. 



SCENE III. THE WINTER S TALE. JJ 

Leon, What, canst not rule her ? 

Paul. From all dishonesty he can : in this, — 
Unless he take the course that you have done, 
Commit me for committing honour, — trust it, 
He shall not rule me. 

Ant. Lo you now, you hear : 

When she will take the rein, I let her run ; 
But she'll not stumble. 

Paul. Good my liege, I come, — 

And 5 I beseech you, hear me, who profess 
Myself your loyal servant, your physician, 
Your most obedient counsellor ; yet that dare 
Less appear so, in comforting your evils, 6 
Than such as most seem yours ; — I say, I come 
From your good Queen ! 

Leon. Good Queen ! 

Paul. Good Queen, my lord, good Queen; I say good 
Queen ; 
And would by combat make her good, so were I 
A man, the worst 7 about you. 

Leon. Force her hence. 

Paul. Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes 
First hand me : on mine own accord I'll off; 

6 The old meaning of to comfort is to encourage, fortify, or make strong. 
So in the Litany : " That it may please Thee to comfort and help the weak- 
hearted." And such is the right sense of Comforter as the English equiv- 
alent of Paraclete. In Ephesians, vi. 10, Wickliffe translates " be coumfortid 
in the Lord"; where our version has it, "be strong in the Lord." — Evils, 
in the text, means wicked courses. 

7 Worst here is weakest, most unwarlike. And so, in King Kenry V., 
iii. i, we have best used for bravest: " For Nym, he hath heard that men 
of the fewest words are the best men; and therefore he scorns to say his 
prayers, lest 'a should be thought a coward^ — " Make her good " is main- 
tain her to be good. 



7& THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT II. 

But first I'll do my errand. — The good Queen — 
For she is good — hath brought you forth a daughter ; 
Here 'tis ; commends it to your blessing. 

\Laying down the Child. 

Leon. Out ! 

A mankind 8 witch !' Hence with her, out o' door : 
A most intelligencing bawd ! 

Paul. Not so : 

I am as ignorant in that as you 
In so entitling me ; and no less honest 
Than you are mad ; which is enough, I'll warrant, 
As this world goes, to pass for honest. 

Leon. Traitors ! 

Will you not push her out ? Give her the bastard. — 
\_To Antic] Thou dotard, thou art woman-tired, 9 unroosted 
By thy Dame Partlet here : take up the bastard ; 
Take't up, I say ; give't to thy crone. 10 

Paul. For ever 

Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou 
Takest up the princess by that forced baseness 
Which he has put upon't ! 

Leon. He dreads his wife. 

Paul. So I would you did ; then 'twere past all doubt 
You'd call your children yours. 

Leon. A nest of traitors ! 

8 Mankind was sometimes used for masculine. In ^Junius' Nomenclator s 
by Abraham Fleming, 1585, Virago is interpreted " A manly woman, or a 
mankind woman." 

9 Henpecked. To tire in falconry is to tear with the beak. Partlet is the 
name of the hen in the old story of Reynard the Fox. The term seems to 
have been proverbial for the wife of a henpecked husband. 

10 A crone was originally a toothless old ewe; and thence became a term 
of contempt for an old woman. 



SCENE III. THE WINTER S TALE. 79 

Ant I'm none, by this good light. 

Paul. Nor I ; nor any, 

But one, that's here, and that's himself; for he 
The sacred honour of himself, his Queen's, 
His hopeful son's, his babe's, betrays to slander, 
Whose sting is sharper than the sword's ; and will not — 
For, as the case now stands, it is a curse 
He cannot be compell'd to't — once remove 
The root of his opinion, which is rotten 
As ever oak or stone was sound. 

Leon. A callet n 

Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband, 
And now baits 12 me ! — This brat is none of mine : 
Hence with it ; and, together with the dam, 
Commit them to the fire ! 

Paul. It is yours ; 

And, might we lay th' old proverb to your charge, 
So like you, 'tis the worse. — Behold, my lords, 
Although the print be little, the whole matter 
And copy of the father : eye, nose, lip ; 
The trick of s frown ; his forehead ; nay, .the valleys, 
The pretty dimples of's chin and cheek ; his smiles ; 
The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger. — 
And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it 
So like the father of it, if thou hast 
The ordering of the mind too, 'mongst all colours 



11 Callet is an old term of reproach applied to women. Skinner derives 
it from the French calotte, " a coife or half kerchief for a woman ; also a 
little light cap or night-cap, worn under a hat." — "A trull, a drab, a jade," 
says Dyce. 

12 To bait is to bark at, worry, or harass ; especially as in bear-baiting. 
So in Macbeth, v. 8 : " And to be baited with the rabble's curse." 



80 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT II. 

No yellow 13 in't, lest she suspect, as he does, 
Her children not her husband's ! 

Leon. A gross hag ! — 

And, losel, 14 thou art worthy to be hang'd, 
That wilt not stay her tongue. 

Ant. Hang all the husbands 

That cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself 
Hardly one subject. 

Leon. Once more, take her hence. 

Paul. A most unworthy and unnatural lord 
Can do no more. 

Leon. I'll ha' thee burn'd. 

Paid. I care not : 

/It is an heretic that makes the fire, 
Not she which burns in't. I'll not call you tyrant; 
But this most cruel usage of your Queen — 
Not able to produce more accusation 
Than your own weak- hinged fancy — something savours 
Of tyranny, and will ignoble make you, 
Yea, scandalous to the world. 

Leon. On your allegiance, 

Out of the chamber with her ! Were I a tyrant, 
Where were her life ? she durst not call me so, 
If she did know me one. Away with her ! 

Paul. I pray you, do not push me ; I'll be gone. — 
Look to your babe, my lord ; 'tis yours : Jove send her 
A better-guiding spirit ! 15 — What need these hands? 

13 Yellow was the colour of jealousy. 

14 " A .lozel," says Verstegan in his Restitution of Decayed hitelligence, 
" is one that hath lost, neglected, or cast off his own good and welfare, and 
so is become lewd, and careless of credit and honesty." From the Anglo- 
Saxon losian, to lose. Lor el and losel are other forms of the same. 

15 Meaning, apparently, " a spirit who will guide her better, or take bet- 






SCENE III. THE WINTER'S TALE. 8 1 

You, that are thus so tender o'er his follies, 

Will never do him good, not one of you. 

So, so : — farewell ; we're gone. [Exit. 

Leon. Thou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to this. — 
My child ? away with't ! — even thou, that hast 
A heart so tender o'er it, take it hence, 
And see it instantly consumed with fire ; 
Even thou, and none but thou. Take it up straight : 
Within this hour bring me word 'tis done, 
And by good testimony ; or I'll seize thy life, 
With what thou else call'st thine. If thou refuse, 
And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so ; 
The bastard's brains with these my proper hands 
Shall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire ; 
For thou sett'st on thy wife. 

Ant I did not, sir : 

These lords, my noble fellows, if they please, 
Can clear me in't. 

i Lord. We can : — my royal liege, 

He is not guilty of her coming hither. 

Leon. You're liars all. 

i Lord. Beseech your Highness, give us better credit : 
We've always truly served you ; and beseech you 
So to esteem of us : and on our knees we beg, — 
As recompense of our dear services 
Past and to come, — that you do change this purpose ; 
Which being so horrible, so bloody, must 
Lead on to some foul issue : we all kneel. 

Leon. I am a feather for each wind that blows. 
Shall I live on, to see this bastard kneel 

ter care of her, than you whose daughter she is " ; for her, I take it, must 
refer to babe. 



82 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT II. 

And call me father? better burn it now 

Than curse it then. . But be it ■ let it live : — 

It shall not neither. — \_To Axtigo.] You, sir, come you 

hither ; 
You that have been so tenderly officious 
With Lady Margery, what will you adventure 
To save this brat's life ? 

Ant. Any thing, my lord, 

That my ability may undergo, 
And nobleness impose ; at least, thus much : 
I'll pawn the little blood that I have left, 
To save the innocent : any thing possible. 

Leon. It shall be possible. Swear by this sword 
Thou wilt perform my bidding. 

Ant. I will, my lord. 

Leon. Mark, and perform it; see'st thou? for the fail 
Of any point in't shall not only be 
Death to thyself, but to thy lewd-tongued wife, 
"Whom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee, 
As thou art liegeman to us, that thou carry 
This female bastard hence ; and that thou bear it 
To some remote and desert place, quite out 
Of our dominions \ and that there thou leave it, 
Without more mercy, to its own protection 
And favour of the climate. As by strange fortune 
It came to us, I do in justice charge thee, 
On thy soul's peril and thy body's torture, 
That thou commend it strangely to some place 16 

16 " Coimnend it strangely to some place " means commit it to some 
strange, that is, foreign, place. Leontes maintains the child to be the off- 
spring of a foreigner. The Poet has many such peculiarities, not to say 
loosenesses, of language. — Commend for commit occurs repeatedly. So in 



SCENE III. THE WINTER'S TALE. 83 

Where chance may nurse or end it. Take it up. 

Ant. I swear to do this, though a present death 
Had been more merciful. — Come on poor babe : 
Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens 
To be thy nurses ! Wolves and bears, they say, 
Casting their savageness aside, have done 
Like offices of pity. — Sir, be prosperous 
In more than this deed does require ! — and blessing, 
Against this cruelty, fight on thy side, 
Poor thing, condemn'd to loss ! \_Exit with the Child. 

Leon. No, I'll not rear 

Another's issue. 

2 Atten. Please your Highness, posts 

From those you sent to th' oracle are come 
An hour since : Cleomenes and Dion, 
Being well arrived from Delphos, are both landed, 
Hasting to th' Court. 

1 Lord. So please you, sir, their speed 

Hath been beyond account. 

Leon. Twenty-three days 

They have been absent : 'tis good speed ; foretells 
The great Apollo suddenly will have 
The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords ; 
Summon a session, that we may arraign 
Our most disloyal lady ; for, as she hath 
Been publicly accused, so shall she have 
A just and open trial. While she lives, 
My heart will be a burden to me. Leave me ; 
And think upon my bidding. [Exeunt. 

iii. 2, of this play: "To the certain hazard of all incertainties himself com- 
mended" 



84 the winter's TALE. ACT hi. 



1/ 



ACT III. 

Scene I. — Sicilia, A Street in some Town. 
Enter Cleomenes, Dion, and an Attendant. 

Cleo. The climate's delicate ; the air most sweet; 
Fertle the isle ; Y the temple much surpassing 
The common praise it bears. 

Dion. I shall report, 

For most it caught me, the celestial habits — 
Methinks I so should term them — and the reverence 
Of the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice ! 
How ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly 
It was i' the offering ! 

Cleo. But, of all, the burst 

And the ear-deafening voice o' the oracle, 
Kin to Jove's thunder, so surprised my sense, 
That I was nothing. 

Dion. If th' event o' the journey 

Prove as successful to the Queen. — O, be't so ! — 
As it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy, 
The time is worth the use on't. 2 

Cleo. Great Apollo 

Turn all to th' best ! These proclamations, 

1 So in Greene's novel : " That it would please his majestie to send sixe 
of his noblemen vvhome he best trusted to the Isle of Delphos, there to en- 
quire of the oracle of Apollo." The Poet probably knew that Delphi was 
a town, and not an island. 

2 " The event of our journey will recompense us for the time we spent in 
St." So in Florio's Montaigne, 1603 : " The common saying is, the time we 
live is worth the money we pay for it." 



SCENE II. THE WINTER'S TALE. 85 

So forcing faults upon Hermione, 
I little like. 

Dion. The violent carriage of it 
Will clear or end the business : when the oracle — 
Thus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up — 
Shall the contents discover, something rare 
Even then will rush to knowledge. — \To Attendant.] Go, — 

fresh horses : — 
And gracious be the issue ! [Exeunt. 

Scene II. — The Same. A Court of Justice. 
Leontes, Lords, and Officers, discovered. 

Leon. This session — to our great grief, we pronounce — 
Even pushes 'gainst our heart : the party tried, 
The daughter of a king, our wife, and one 
Of us too much beloved. Let us be clear'd 
Of being tyrannous, since we so openly 
Proceed in justice ; which shall have due course, 
Even l to th' guilt or the purgation. — 
Produce the prisoner. 

1 Offi. It is his Highness' pleasure that the Queen 
Appear in person here in court. 

Crier. Silence ! 

Hermione is brought in guarded ; Paulina and Ladies 

attending. 

Leon. Read the indictment. 

1 Offi. [Reads.] Hermione, Queen to the worthy Leontes, 
King of Siciiia, thou art here accused and arraigned of high 

1 Even in the sense of equally or indifferently* 



86 THE WINTER S TALE. ACT III. 

treason, in committing adultery with Polixenes, King of 
Bohemia, and conspiring with Camillo to take away the life 
of our sovereign lord the King, thy royal husband : the pre- 
tence 2 whereof being by circumstances partly laid open, thou, 
Hermione, contrary to the faith and allegiance of a t)-ue 
subject, didst counsel and aid them, for their better safety, 
to fly away by night, 

Herm. Since what I am to say must be but that 
Which contradicts my accusation, and 
The testimony on my part no other 
But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me 
To say, Not guilty : mine integrity 
Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it, 
Be so received. But thus : If Powers divine 
Behold our human actions, as they do, 
I doubt not, then, but innocence shall make 
False accusation blush, and tyranny 
Tremble at patience. — You, my lord, best know — 
Who least will seem to do so — my past life 
Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true, 
As I am now unhappy ; which is more 
Than history can pattern, though devised 
And play'd to take spectators : for, behold me, — 
A fellow of the royal bed, which owe 3 
A moiety of the throne, a great king's daughter, 
The mother to a hopeful prince, — here standing 
To prate and talk for life and honour 'fore 
Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it 



2 Shakespeare often uses pretence for design or intention. The usagfc 
was common. See Macbeth, page 93, note 52. 

3 Owe and own are but different forms of the same word. 



SCENE II. THE WINTER'S TALE. 87 

As I weigh grief, which I would spare : 4 for honour, 

'Tis a derivative from me to mine ; 

And only that I stand for. I appeal 

To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes 

Came to your Court, how I was in your grace, 

How merited to be so ; since he came, 

With what encounter so uncurrent I 

Have strain'd, 5 t' appear thus : if one jot beyond 

The bound of honour, or in act or will 

That way inclining, harden'd be the hearts 

Of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin 

Cry Fie upon my grave ! / 

Leon, I ne'er heard yet 

That any of these bolder vices wanted 
Less impudence to gainsay what they did 
Than to perform it first. 6 

Herm. That's true enough ; 

4 " I prize my life no more than I value grief, which I would willingly be 
rid of, or free from." 

6 Encounter was formerly used for any sort of meeting or intercourse ; 
and itncurrent must here be taken in the sense of wilawful or unallowable ; 
that which has not the stamp of moral currency. — Strain'd, if it be the 
right word, is no doubt used here in the same sense as the substantive strain 
in The Merry Wives, ii. 1 : " Unless he know some strain in me, that I 
know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury." Also in 
iii. 3 : " I would all of the same strain were in the same distress." Here 
strain evidently means some native streak, vicious trait, or inborn aptness 
to evil. So that the meaning in the text apparently is, " I appeal to your 
own conscience to specify by what improper act of intimacy, since he came, 
I have so far evinced an innate streak of evil, as to seem guilty of the sin 
you charge mc with." — For this explanation I am mainly indebted to Mr. 
Joseph Crosby. See Critical Notes. 

The sense is somewhat entangled here ; the construction being such as 
ive it uncertain whether less is an adverb qualifying wanted or an ad- 
jective qualifying impudence. But less is doubtless to be taken in the latter 



88 the winter's TALE. • ACT III. 

Though 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me. 

Leon. You will not own it. 

Herni. More than mistress of 

Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not 
At all acknowledge. For Polixenes, — 
With whom I am accused, — I do confess 
I loved him, as in honour he required ; 
With such a kind of love as might become 
A lady like me ; with a love even such, 
So and no other, as yourself commanded : 
Which not to have done, I think had been in me 
Both disobedience and ingratitude 
To you and toward your friend ; whose love had spoke, 
Even since it could speak, from an infant, freely, 
That it was yours. Now, for conspiracy, 
I know not how it tastes j though it be dish'd 
For me to try how : all I know of it 
Is, that Camillo was an honest man ; 
And why he left your Court, the gods themselves, 
Wotting no more than I, are ignorant. 

Leon. You knew of his departure, as you know what 
You've underta'en to do in's absence. 

He7-m. Sir, 

You speak a language that I understand not : 
My life stands in the level 7 of your dreams, 
Which I'll lay down. 

Leon. Your actions are my dreams : 

way ; so that the meaning comes thus : " I never heard that those who had 
impudence enough to be guilty of these bolder vices wanted the less impu- 
dence necessary for denying them." 

7 Level, again, as a term in gunnery for range or line of aim. The 
phrase, " I levelled at him," is still in use for " I aimed at him." See page 
75, note I. 



SCENE IT. THE WINTER^ TALE. 89 

You had a bastard by Polixenes, 

And I but dream'd it : as you were past all shame, — ~ 

Those of your fact are so, — so past all truth : 

Which to deny concerns more than avails ; for as 

Thy brat hath been cast out, left to itself, 

No father owning it, — which is, indeed, 

More criminal in thee than it, — so thou 

Shall feel our justice ; in whose easiest passage 8 

Look for no less than death. 

Herm. Sir, spare your threats : 

The bug 9 which you would fright me with I seek. 
To me can life be no commodity : 
The crown and comfort of my life, your favour, • 
I do give lost ; for I do feel it gone, 
But know not how it went : my second joy 
And first-fruits of my body, from his presence 
I'm barr'd, like one infectious : my third comfort, 
Starr 'd most unluckily, 10 is from my breast, 
The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth, 
Haled out to murder : myself on every post 
Proclaim'd a harlot ; with immodest hatred 
The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs 
To women of all fashion ; lastly, hurried 
Here to this place, i' the open air, before 

8 "Whose easiest passage" is whose lightest sentence; whose referring 
to justice. " Death is the mildest sentence that justice can pass upon 
you." 

9 The old meaning of bug survives in our bugbear. The word is Celtic, 
and properly signifies a ghost, goblin, or any thing that causes " terror by 
night." So, in Psalm xci. 5, Mathew's Bible, 1537, has " Thou shalt not be 
afraid for the bug by night." Here our authorized version reads " Thou 
shalt not be afraid for the terror by night." 

10 Ill-starred ; born under an inauspicious planet. 



90 THE WINTER S TALE. ACT III. 

I have got strength of limit. 11 Now, my liege, 
Tell me what blessings I have here alive, 
That I should fear to die ? Therefore, proceed. 
But yet hear this ; mistake me not : My life, 
I prize it not a straw ; but, for mine honour, 
Which I would free, if I shall be condemn'd 
Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else 
But what your jealousies awake, I tell you, 
'Tis rigour, and not law. — Your Honours all, 
I do refer me to the oracle : 
Apollo be my judge ! 

i Lord. This your request 

Is altogether just : — therefore, bring forth, 
And in Apollo's name, his oracle. [Exeunt certain Officers. 

Herm. The Emperor of Russia was my father : 
O, that he were alive, and here beholding 
His daughter's trial ! that he did but see 
The flatness of my misery ; yet with eyes 
Of pity, not revenge ! 

Re-enter Officers, with Cleomenes and Dion. 

i Offi. You here shall swear upon this sword of justice, 
That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have 
Been both at Delphos j and from thence have brought 
This seal'd-up oracle, by th' hand deliver'd 
Of great Apollo's priest • and that, since then, 
You have not dared to break the holy seal, 

11 " Strength of limit" is explained by Mason "the limited degree of 
strength necessary for persons in my situation." I suspect, however, that 
of is merely equivalent here to by; as the prepositions by, of, and with were 
often used indiscriminately. This would make the sense to be, " before I 
have got strength by seclusion." 



SCENE II. THE WINTER S TALE. 9 1 

Nor read the secrets in't. 

Cleo ' i All this we swear. 

Dion. ) 

Leon. Break up the seals, and read. 

i Offi. [Reads.] Hermione is chaste ; Polixenes blame- 
less ; Camillo a true subject ; Leontes a jealous tyrant ; his 
innocent babe truly begotten ; and the King shall live without 
an heir, if that which is lost be not found. 

Lords. Now blessed be the great Apollo ! 

Herm. Praised ! 

Leon. Hast thou read truth ? 

i Offi. Ay, my lord ; even so 

As it is here set down. 

Leon. There is no truth at all i' the oracle : 
The session shall proceed : this is mere falsehood. 

Enter an Attendant hastily. 

Atten. My lord the King, the King ! 

Leon. What is the business ? 

Atten. O sir, I shall be hated to report it ! 
The Prince your son, with mere conceit and fear 
Of the Queen's speed, 12 is gone. 

Leon. How ! gone ? 

Atten. Is dead. 

Leon. Apollo's angry ; and the Heavens themselves 
Do strike at my injustice. — [Hermione faints?^ How now 
there ! 

12 Conceit is used by Shakespeare for nearly all the forms of mental 
action. Here it seems to have the sense of apprehension. So that the 
meaning is, " with fearful apprehension of how the Queen's fortune would 
turn at the trial." 



92 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT III. 

Paul. This news is mortal to the Queen : look down, 
And see what death is doing. 

Leon. Take her hence : 

Her heart is but o'ercharged ; she will recover. 
I have too much believed mine own suspicion : 
Beseech you, tenderly apply to her 
Some remedies for life. — 

\_Exeunt Paul, and Ladies, with Herm. 
Apollo, pardon 
My great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle ! — 
I'll reconcile me to Polixenes ; 
New woo my Queen ; recall the good Camillo, 
Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy ; 
For, being transported by my jealousies 
To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose 
Camillo for the minister, to poison 
My friend Polixenes : which had been done, 
But that the good mind of Camillo tardied 
My swift command, though I with death and with 
Reward did threaten and encourage him, 
Not doing it and being done : he, most humane, 
And fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest 
Unclasp'd my practice ; quit his fortunes here, 
Which you knew great ; and to the certain hazard 
Of all incertainties 13 himself commended, 
No richer than his honour. 14 How he glisters 



18 So in Sidney's Arcadia : " To know the certainty of things to come, 
wherein there is nothing so certain as our continual uncertainty? Lettsom 
quotes divers other passages, showing that such phraseology was common 
in the Poet's time. 

14 Meaning, apparently, enriched with nothing, or carrying no riches 
with him, but his honour. 



SCENE II. THE WINTER S TALE. 93 

Thorough 15 my rust ! and how his piety 
Does my deeds make the blacker ! 

Re-enter Paulina. 

Paul. Woe the while ! 

O, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it, 
Break too ! 

i Lord. What fit is this, good lady ? 

Paul. What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me ? 
What wheels, racks, fires ? what flaying, or what boiling 
In lead or oil ? what old or newer torture 
Must I receive, whose every word deserves 
To taste of thy most worst ? Thy tyranny 
Together working with thy jealousies, — 
Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle 
For girls of nine, — O, think what they have done, 
And then run mad indeed, stark mad ! for all 
Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it. 
That thou betray'dst Polixenes, 'twas nothing ; 
That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant, 16 
And damnable ingrateful : nor was't much, 
Thou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's honour, 
To have him kill a king : poor trespasses, 
More monstrous standing by ; whereof I reckon 
The casting forth to crows thy baby daughter, 

15 Throughly for thoroughly has occurred in this play. Here we have 
thorough for through. So in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, ii. i : " Over 
park, over pale, thorough flood, thorough fire." 

16 " Show thee, being a fool naturally, to have improved thy folly by in- 
constancy." A similar expression occurs in Phaer's Virgil : " When this 
the young men heard me speak, of wild they waxed wood." Also in Bacon's 
Advancement of Learning, i. : " He doubted the philosopher of a Stoic 
would turn to be a Cynic." 



94 THE WINTER S TALE. ACT III. 

To be or none or little ; though a devil 

Would have shed water out of fire 17 ere done't : 

Nor is't directly laid to thee, the death 

Of the young Prince, whose honourable thoughts — 

Thoughts high for one so tender — cleft the heart 

That could conceive a gross and foolish sire 

Blemish'd his gracious dam : this is not, no, 

Laid to thy answer : but the last, — O lords, 

When I have said, cry Woe / — the Queen, the Queen, 

The sweet 'st, dear'st creature's dead ; and vengeance for't 

Not dropp'd down yet. 

i Lord. The higher powers forbid ! 

Paul. I say she's dead • I'll swear't. If word nor oath 
Prevail not, go and see : if you can bring 
Tincture or lustre in her lip, her eye, 
Heat outwardly or breath within, I'll serve you 
As I would do the gods. — But, O thou tyrant ! 
Do not repent these things ; for they' are heavier 
Than all thy woes can stir : therefore betake thee 
To nothing but despair. A thousand knees 
Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting, 
Upon a barren mountain, and still Winter 
In storm perpetual, could not move the gods 
To look that way thou wert. 

Leon. Go on, go on : 

Thou canst not speak too much \ I have deserved 
All tongues to talk their bitterest. 

i Lord. Say no more : 

Howe'er the business goes, you've made fault 



17 Though a devil would have shed tears of pity from amidst the flames 
sooner than done such an act. 



SCENE IT. THE WINTER S TALE. 95 

F the boldness of your speech. 

Paul. I'm sorry for't : 

All faults I make, when I shall come to know them, 
I do repent. Alas, I've show'd too much 
The rashness of a woman ! he is touch' d 
To th' noble heart. — What's gone, and what's past help, 
Should be past grief ; do not revive affliction : 
At my petition, I beseech you, rather 
Let me be punish'd, 18 that have minded you 
Of what you should forget. Now, good my liege, 
Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman : 
The love I bore your Queen, — lo, fool again ! 
I'll speak of her no more^ nor of your children ; 
I'll not remember you of my own lord, 
Who is lost too : take you your patience to you, 
And I'll say nothing. 

Leon. Thou didst speak but well, 

When most the truth ; which I receive much better 
Than to be pitied of thee. Pr'ythee, bring me 
To the dead bodies of my Queen and son : 
One grave shall be for both ; upon them shall 
The causes of their death appear, unto 
Our shame perpetual. Once a day I'll visit 
The chapel where they lie ; and tears shed there 
Shall be my recreation : so long as nature 
Will bear up with this exercise, so long 
I daily vow to use it. Come, and lead me 
Unto these sorrows. [Exeunt 

18 Meaning, apparently, " I beseech you, rather let me be punished as at 
my own request" ; that is, at her request, and not as by the sentence of the 
King. In her struggle of feelings, Paulina, noble soul! is not altogether 
correct and classical in her language. 



g6 the winter's TALE. ACT hi. 

Scene III. — Bohemia, A desert Country near the Sea. 
Enter Antigonus with the Child, and a Mariner. 

Ant. Thou'rt perfect, 1 then, our ship hath touch'd upon 
The deserts of Bohemia ? 

Mar. Ay, my lord ; and fear 

We've landed in ill time : the skies look grimly, 
And threaten present blusters. In my conscience, 
The Heavens with that we have in hand are angry, 
And frown upon's. 

Ant. Their sacred wills be done ! Go, get aboard ; 
Look to thy bark : I'll not be long before 
I call upon thee. 

Mar. Make your best haste ; and go not 

Too far i' the land : 'tis like to be loud weather ; 
Besides, this place is famous for the creatures 
Of prey that keep upon't. 

Ant. Go thou away : 

I'll follow instantly. 

Mar. I'm glad at heart 

To be so rid o' the business. \_Exit. 

Ant. Come, poor babe : 

I've heard, but not believed, the spirits o' the dead 
May walk again : if such thing be, thy mother 
Appear'd to me last night ; for ne'er was dream 
So like a waking. To me comes a creature, 
Sometimes her head on one side, some another ; 
I never saw a vessel of like sorrow, 

1 Shakespeare has perfect repeatedly in the sense of certain or well 
assured. So in Cymbellne, iii. i : " I am perfect that the Pannonians and 
Dalmatians for their liberties are now in arms." 



SCENE III. THE WINTER S TALE. 97 

So fill'd and so o'er-running : in pure white robes, 

Like very sanctity, she did approach 

My cabin where I lay ; thrice bow'd before me ; 

And, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes 

Became two spouts : the fury spent, anon 

Did this break from her : Good Antigonus, 

Since fate, against thy better disposition, 

Hath made thy person for the thrower-out 

Of my poor babe, according to thine oath, 

Places remote enough are in Bohemia ; ■ 

There wend, and leave it crying ; and, for the babe 

Is counted lost for ever, Perdita? 

I pr'yihee, calPt. For this ungentle business, 

Put on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see 

Thy wife Paulina more : and so, with shrieks, 

She melted into air. Affrighted much, 

I did in time collect myself; and thought 

This was so, and no slumber. Dreams are toys : 3 

Yet, for this once, yea, superstitiously, 

I will be squared by this. I do believe 

Hermione hath suffer'd death ; and that 

Apollo would, this being indeed the issue 

Of King Polixenes, it should here be laid, 

Either for life or death, upon the earth 

Of its right father. — Blossom, speed thee well ! 

\_Laying down the Child, with a scroll. 
There lie ; and there thy character : 4 there these ; 

\_Laying down a bundle. 

2 Perdita is a Latin word literally meaning lost. 

8 Toys, as the word is here used, are trifies, fancies, or things of no im- 
portance. 

4 This character is the description, a written scroll, afterwards found with 
Perdita. 



gS the winter's TALE. ACT III. 

Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty, 
And still rest thine. The storm begins : poor wretch, 5 

[ Thunder, 
That, for thy mother's fault, art thus exposed 
To loss and what may follow ! Weep I cannot, 
But my heart bleeds : and most accursed am I, 
To be by oath enjoin'd to this. Farewell ! 
The day frowns more and more : thou'rt like to have 
A lullaby too rough : I never saw 
The heavens so dim by day. — A savage clamour ! 

[Noise of hunters, dogs, and bears vvithin. 
Well may I get aboard ! — This is the chase : 
I'm gone for ever. [Exit, pursued by a bear. 

Enter an old Shepherd. 

Shep. I would there were no age between sixteen and 
three -and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest ; 
for there is nothing in the between but wronging the 
ancientry, stealing, fighting. Hark you now ! Would any 
but these boil'd brains 6 of nineteen and two-and-twenty 
hunt this weather ? They have scared away two of my best 
sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find than the mas- 
ter : if anywhere I have them, 'tis by the seaside, browzing 
of ivy. — [Seeing the Child.] Good luck, an't be thy will ! 
what have we here ? Mercy on's, a barn ; a very pretty 
barn ! A god, or a child, 7 I wonder ? A pretty one ; a 

5 Wretch was the strongest expression of tenderness or endearment in 
the language. Shakespeare has it repeatedly so. 

6 Love, madness, and melancholy are imaged by Shakespeare under the 
figure oiboiVd brains, or boiling brains. Here the phrase means the same 
as our " mad-brained youth." See The Tempest, page 135, note 10. 

7 The best comment on this is furnished by Greene's novel : " The Shep- 
herd, who before had never seen so fair a babe nor so rich jewels, thought 



SCENE III. THE WINTERS TALE. 99 

very pretty one : sure, some 'scape : 8 though I am not 
bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the 'scape. 
This has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some 
behind-door-work. I'll take it up for pity : yet I'll tarry till 
my son come ; he halloo'd but even now. — Whoa, ho, hoa ! 

Clo. [Within.] Hilloa, loa ! 

Shep. What, art so near ? If thou'lt see a thing to talk on 
when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. 

Enter the Clown. 

What ailest thou, man ? 

Clo. I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land ! 
but I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky : betwixt 
the firmament and it you cannot thrust a bodkin's point. 

Shep. Why, boy, how is it ? 

Clo. I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, 
how it takes up 9 the shore ! but that's not to the point. O, 
the most piteous cry of the poor souls ! sometimes to see 'em, 
and then not to see 'em ; now the ship boring the Moon with 
her main-mast, and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as 
you'd thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then, for the land- 
service, to see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone ; 
how he cried to me for help, and said his name was Antigonus, 
a nobleman. But, to make an end of the ship, to see 
how the sea flap-dragon'd it : 10 but, first, how the poor 

assuredly that it was some little god, and began with great devotion to 
knock on his breast. The babe, who writhed with the head to seek for the 
pap, began again to cry afresh, whereby the poor man knew it was a child." 

8 'Scape here means a secret lapse or transgression ; " an escape from the 
limits of rule, a trick, a wanton deviation," says Nares. 

9 Take up appears to be used something in the sense of devour ; as in 
Hamlet, iv. 2 : " The ocean, ovcrpeering of his list, eats not the Hats with 
more impetuous haste," &c. 

10 That is, swallowed it, as topers did Jlap-dragons, which were some in- 



IOO THE WINTER S TALE. ACT III. 

souls roared, and the sea mock'd them ; and how the poor 
gentleman roared, and the bear mock'd him, both roaring 
louder than the sea or weather. 

Shep. Name of mercy, when was this, boy ? 

Clo. Now, now; I have not wink'd since I saw these 
sights : the men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear 
half dined on the gentleman ; he's at it now. 

Shep, Would I had been by, to have help'd the noble- 
man ! 

Clo. I would you had been by the ship -side, to have help'd 
her : \_Aside.~] there your charity would have lack'd footing. 

Shep. Heavy matters ! heavy matters ! but look thee here, 
boy. Now bless thyself: thou mett'st with things dying, I 
with things new-born. Here's a sight for thee ; look thee, 
a bearing-cloth n for a squire's child ! look thee here ; take 
up, take up, boy ; open't: So, let's see : it was told me I 
should be rich by the fairies ; this is some changeling : 12 
open't. What's within, boy? 

Clo. You're a made old man : 13 if the sins of your youth 
are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold ! all gold ! 

Shep. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so ; up 
with't, keep it close : home, home, the next way. 14 We are 

flammable substances set on fire, put afloat in the liquor, and gulped down 
blazing. 

11 The mantle of fine cloth, in which a child was carried to be baptized. 

12 In the olden time the fairies had a naughty custom of stealing away- 
fine, bright children, and leaving ugly or stupid ones in their stead. Both 
the child so stolen and the child so left were called changelings. Here the 
changeling is the child stolen. The old poets have many allusions to this 
sharp practice of the fairy nation. See A Midsum?ner- Night's Dream, page 
40, note 5. 

13 To make a man is, in old language, to set him up in the world, or to 
endow him with wealth. See The Tempest, page 93, note 9. 

14 " The next way " is the nearest way. Often so. 






CHORUS. THE WINTER S TALE. 10 1 

lucky, boy ; and to be so still, requires nothing but secrecy. 
Let my sheep go : come, good boy, the next way home. 

Clo. Go you the next way with your findings. I'll go see 
if the bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he 
hath eaten : they are never curst, 15 but when they are hungry : 
if there be any of him left, I'll bury it. 

Shep. That's a good deed. If thou mayst discern by that 
which is left of him what he is, fetch me to the sight of him. 

Clo. Marry, will I ; and you shall help to put him i' the 
ground. 

Shep. Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do good deeds on't. 

\Exeunt. 



ACT IV. 
Enter Time, as Chorus. 



Time. I — that please some, try all ; both joy and terror 
Of good and bad ; that make and unfold error — 
Now take upon me, in the name of Time, 
To use my wings. Impute it not a crime 
To me or my swift passage, that I slide 
O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried 
Of that wide gap ; l since it is in my power 

15 Curst here signifies mischievous. An old adage says, " Curst cows 
have short horns." 

1 Leave unexamined the progress of the time which filled up the gap in 
Perdita's story. The reasoning of Time is not very clear ; he seems to 
mean, that he who overthrows every thing, and makes as well as over- 
whelms custom, may surely infringe the laws of his own making. 



102 THE WINTER S TALE. ACT IV. 

To o'erthrow law, and in one self-born hour 

To plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass 

The same I am, ere ancient 'st order was, 

Or what is now received : I witness' d too 

The times that brought them in ; so shall I do 

To th' freshest things now reigning, and make stale 

The glistering of this present, as my tale 

Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing, 

I turn my glass, and give my scene such growing 

As you had slept between. Leontes leaving, — 

Th' effects of his fond 2 jealousies so grieving 

That he shuts up himself, — imagine me, 3 

Gentle spectators, that I now may be 

In fair Bohemia ; and remember well 

A mention'd son o' the King's, which Florizel 

I now name to you ; and with speed so pace 

To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace 

Equal with wondering : 4 what of her ensues, 

I list not prophesy ; but let Time's news 

Be known when 'tis brought forth : a shepherd's daughter, 

And what to her adheres, which follows after, 

Is th' argument of Time. Of this allow, 

If ever you have spent time worse ere now ; 

If never, yet that Time himself doth say 

He wishes earnestly you never may. [Exit. 

2 Shakespeare continually uses fond in the sense of foolish. 

3 The order, according to the sense, appears to be something thus : 
" Imagine me leaving Leontes, who so grieves th' effects of his fond jeal- 
ousies that he shuts up himself," &c. 

4 That is, grown so beautiful, or so far in beauty, as to be a proper object 
of wonder or admiration. 



SCENE I. THE WINTER'S TALE. IO3 

Scene I. — Bohemia. A Room in the Palace of Polixenes. 
Enter Polixenes and Camillo. 

Polix. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate : 
'tis a sickness denying thee any thing ; a death to grant this. 

Cain. It is sixteen years since I saw my country : though 
I have, for the most part, been aired abroad, I desire to lay 
my bones there. Besides, the penitent King, my master, hath 
sent for me ; to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or 
I o'erween to think so ; which is another spur to my departure. 

Polix. As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of 
thy services by leaving me now : the need I have of thee 
thine own goodness hath made ; better not to have had thee 
than thus to want thee : thou, having made me businesses 
which none without thee can sufficiently manage, must either 
stay to execute them thyself, or take away with thee the very 
services thou hast done ; which if I have not enough con- 
sidered, — as too much I cannot, — to be more thankful to 
thee shall be my study ; and my profit therein, the heaping 
friendships. Of that fatal country Sicilia, pr'ythee speak no 
more ; whose very naming punishes me with the remem- 
brance of that penitent, as thou call'st him, and reconciled 
King, my brother ; whose loss of his most precious Queen 
and children are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to 
me, when saw'st thou the Prince Florizel, my son? Kings are 
no less unhappy, their issue not being gracious, 1 than they 
are in losing them when they have approved their virtues. 

Cam. Sir, it is three days since I saw the Prince. What 
his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown : but I have 

1 Gracious here means in a state of heavenly grace or favour. So in ii. 
3, of this play: "A gracious innocent soul, more free than he is jealous." 



104 THE WINTER S TALE. ACT TV. 

musingly noted, 2 he is of late much retired from Court, and 
is less frequent to his princely exercises than formerly he hath 
appeared. 

Polix. I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some 
care ; so far, that I have eyes under my service which look 
upon his removedness ; from whom I have this intelligence, 
that he is seldom from the house of a most homely shep- 
herd ; a man, they say, that from very nothing, and beyond 
the imagination of his neighbours, is grown into an unspeak- 
able estate. 

Cam. I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daugh- 
ter of most rare note : the report of her is extended more than 
can be thought to begin from such a cottage. 

Polix. That's likewise part of my intelligence ; and I fear 
the angle 3 that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accom- 
pany us to the place ; where we will, not appearing what we 
are, have some question 4 with the shepherd ; from whose 
simplicity I think it not uneasy to get the cause of my son's 
resort thither. Pr'ythee, be my present partner in this busi- 
ness, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia. 

Ca??i. I willingly obey your command. 

Polix, My best Camillo ! We must disguise ourselves. 

[Exeunt. 

2 To muse is old language for to wonder : so that to note musingly is to 
observe with wonder or surprise. 

3 Angle for the bait, or hook and line, that draws his son away, as an 
angler draws a fish. To pluck for to pull occurs frequently. 

4 Here, as often, question is talk or conversation. 



SCENE II. THE WINTERS TALE. IC>5 

Scene II. — The Same, A Road near the Shepherd's Cottage. 

Enter Autolycus, singing. 

When daffodils begin to peer, — 
With, hey t the doxy over the dale, — 
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year ; 
For the red blood reigns in the Winter's pale \ l 

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, — 
With, hey / the sweet birds, O, how they sing / — 
Doth set my pugging 2 tooth on edge ; 
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king. 

The lark, that tirra-lirra chants, — 
With, hey ! with, hey I the thrush and the jay, — 
Are summer songs for me and my aunts? 
While we lie tumbling in the hay. 

I have served Prince Florizel, and, in my time, wore three- 
pile ; 4 but now I am out of service : 

[Sings.] But shall I go mourn for that, my dear ? 
The pale Moon shines by night : 

1 Pale is used here in a double sense, as referring to the pale colours of 
Winter, and as we still say " the pale of fashion," and " the pale of the 
Church." "English pale" and " Irish pale" were common expressions in 
the Poet's time. The meaning in the text is well explained by Heath : 
" For, though the Winter is not quite over, the red blood resumes its genial 
vigour. The first appearance of the daffodil in the fields is at the latter end 
of Winter, where it joins the Spring." 

2 Apuggard was a cant name for some kind of thief. In The Roaring 
Girl, 1611, we have, "Cheaters, lifters, nips, foists, puggards" Pugging is 
used by Greene in one of his pieces. 

8 Aunt was sometimes used as a cant term for a loose woman. 

4 Velvet was valued according to the pile, three-pile being the richest. 



106 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT IV. 

And when I wander here and there, 
I then do most go right 

If tinkers may have leave to live, 

And bear the sow-skin budget? 
Then my account I well may give, 

And in the stocks 6 avouch it. 

My traffic is sheets \ when the kite builds, look to lesser 
linen. 7 My father named me Autolycus ; who being, as I 
am, litter'd under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of 
unconsidered trifles. With die and drab I purchased this 
caparison ; and my revenue is the silly-cheat : 8 gallows and 
knock are too powerful on the highways \ beating and hang- 
ing are terrors to me ; for the life to come, I sleep out the 
thought of it. — A prize ! a prize ! 

Enter the Clown. 

Clo. Let me see : Every 'leven wether tods ; 9 every tod 
yields pound and odd shilling : fifteen hundred shorn, what 
comes the wool to ? 

Aut \_Aside.~\ If the springe hold, the cock's mine. 10 

5 The wallet, or bag, made of swine-skin, in which tinkers carried their 
tools and materials. 

6 A common engine in which certain offenders were punished ; being 
fastened by the ankles, and sitting with their legs in a horizontal position. 

7 Autolycus means that his practice was to steal sheets, leaving the 
smaller linen to be carried away by the kites, who will sometimes carry it 
off to line their nests. The Autolycus of classic legend was the son of Mer- 
cury, and the maternal grandfather of Ulysses the Crafty. He lived on 
Mount Parnassus, and was famed for his cunning in robberies. 

8 The silly-cheat is one of the slang terms belonging to coney-catching or 
thievery. It is supposed to have meant picking of pockets. 

9 Every eleven sheep will produce a tod or twenty-eight pounds of wool. 
The price of a tod of wool was about 2.0s. or 22s. in 1581. 

10 Springe is snare or trap. The woodcock is the bird meant; which 
was said to have no brains, it being a very silly bird, and easily caught. 



SCENE II. THE WINTERS TALE. IO7 

Clo. I cannot do't without counters. Let me see : what 
am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast ? Three pound of 
sugar ; five pound of currents ; n rice, — what will this sister 
of mine do with rice ? But my father hath made her mis- 
tress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath made me four- 
and-twenty nosegays for the shearers, — three-man song- 
men 12 all, and very good ones ; but they are most of them 
means 13 and bases ; but one Puritan amongst them, and he 
sings psalms to hornpipes. 14 I must have saffron, to colour 
the warden-pies ; 15 mace ; dates, — none, that's out of my 
note ; 16 nutmegs, seven ; a race or two of ginger, — but that 
I may beg ; four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o' 
the sun. 17 

Aut. \_Lying on the ground.~\ O, that ever I was born ! 

Clo. V the name of me, — 

11 This is commonly understood and printed as if the Clown were read- 
ing from a note, which he is probably too unsophisticated to be guilty of. 
No doubt he is speaking from memory. 

12 So called because they sang rounds or glees in three parts. 

13 The meaii was an intermediate part between the treble and the tenor ; 
so named because it served as a mean, or a harmonizing medium : some- 
times called counter-tenor. 

14 These were probably much the same as what in our day are sometimes 
called " Geneva jigs." It would seem that even so early as Shakespeare's 
time the notion had been taken up and carried out, of turning hornpipes, 
jigs, &c, into sacred music by setting religious words to them. 

15 Wardens are a 'large sort of pear, called in French Poires dc Garde \ 
because, being a late hard pear, they may be kept very long. It is said that 
their name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon wearden, to preserve. They 
are now called bak'mg-pears, and are generally coloured with cochineal in- 
stead of saffron as of old. 

10 " Out of my note " probably docs not mean his written list, but not 
among the things noted down in his memory. See page 39, note 5. 

17 "Race of ginger" here means, apparently, root of ginger; though it is 
said to have been used sometimes for a package. — ''Raisins of the sun " is 
the old name for what are now called raisins simply. Probably so called 
because they were grapes dried in the sun. 



108 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT IV. 

Aut. O, help me, help me ! pluck but off these rags ; and 
then, death, death ! 

Clo. Alack, poor soul ! thou hast need of more rags to lay 
on thee, rather than have these off. 

Aut. O sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more 
than the stripes I have received, which are mighty ones and 
millions. 

Clo. Alas, poor man ! a million of beating may come to a 
great matter. 

Aut. I am robb'd, sir, and beaten ; my money and ap- 
parel ta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon me. 

Clo. What, by a horseman or a footman ? 

Aut. A footman, sweet sir, a footman. 

Clo. Indeed, he should be a footman by the garments he 
has left with thee : if this be a horseman's coat, it hath seen 
very hot service. 18 Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee : come, 
lend me thy hand. \Helping him up. 

Aut. O, good sir, tenderly, O ! 

Clo. Alas, poor soul ! 

Aut. O, good sir, softly, good sir ! I fear, sir, my shoulder- 
blade is out. 

Clo. How now ! canst stand ? 

Aut. Softly, dear sir ; \_Picks his pocket^ good sir, softly. 
You ha 7 done me a charitable office. 

Clo. Dost lack any money ? I have a little money for thee. 

Aut. No, good sweet sir ; no, I beseech you, sir : I have 
a kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto 
whom I was going ; I shall there have money, or any thing 
I want : offer me no money, I pray you ; that kills my heart. 

18 The Clown quibbles on footman and horseman, using them here as 
military terms. A mounted soldier must have been in a hard fight, to have 
his coat so spoiled. 



SCENE II. THE WINTER S TALE. IO9 

Clo. What manner of fellow was he that robb'd you ? 

Aut. A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with 
troll-my-dames : 19 I knew him once a servant of the Prince : 
I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he 
was certainly whipp'd out of the Court. 

Clo. His vices, you would say ; there's no virtue whipp'd 
out of the Court : they cherish it, to make it stay there ; and 
yet it will no more but abide. 20 

Aut. Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well : he 
hath been since an ape -bearer ; then a process-server, — a 
bailiff; then he compass'd a motion 21 of the Prodigal Son, 
and married a tinker's wife within a mile where my land and 
living lies ; and, having flown over many knavish professions, 
he settled only in rogue : some call him Autolycus. 

Clo. Out upon him ! prig, 22 for my life, prig : he haunts 
wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings. 

Aut. Very true, sir ; he, sir, he ; that's the rogue that put 
me into this apparel. 

Clo. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia ; if you 
had but look'd big and spit at him, he'd have run. 

19 The old English title of this game was pigeon-holes ; as the arches in 
the board through which the balls are to be rolled resemble the cavities 
made for pigeons in a dove-house. In Jones's Treatise on Buckstone Bathes : 
" The ladyes, &c, if the weather be not agreeable, may have in the ende of 
a benche eleven holes made, into the which to troule pummits : the pas- 
ime troule in madame is called." It is a corruption of trou-madame. 

20 Will only sojourn, or put up for short time. But with the force of than. 
See Twelfth Night, page 41, note 1. 

21 Motion is the old name of a puppet-show ; so used even as late as 
Fielding's time. In his Jonathan Wild, he says the master of a puppet- 
show "wisefy keeps out of sight ; for, should he once appear, the whole 
motion would be at an end." — Compass'd is obtained. 

22 p r ig was another cant phrase for the order of thieves. Harm an, in his 
Caveat for Cursetor, 1573, calls a horse-stealer "a priggcr of pranccrs ; for 
to prigge in their language is to stcalc." 



I 10 THE WINTERS TALE. ACT IV. 

Aut. I must confess to you. sir. I am no fighter: I am 
false of heart that way ; and that he knew, I warrant him. 

Clo. How do you now? 

Aut. Sweet sir, much better than I was : I can stand and 
walk : I will even take my leave of you, and pace softly to- 
wards my kinsman's. 

Clo. Shall I bring thee ~ 3 on the way ? 

Aut. No, good-faced sir ; no, sweet sir. 

Clo. Then fare thee well : I must go buy spices for our 
sheep-shearing. 

Aut. Prosper you, sweet sir ! [Exit Clown.] — Your purse 
is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with you 
at your sheep-shearing too : if I make not this cheat bring 
out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be un- 
roll'd, 24 and my name put in the book of virtue ! 

[Sings.] Jog o?i, jog o?i, the footpath way, 
And merrily he /it' 25 the stilc-a : 
A merry heart goes all the day, 

You?' sad tires hi a mile- a. [Exit. 

Scene III. — The Same. A Lawn before a Shepherd's 
Cott 

Enter Florizel and Perdita. 

Flo. These your unusual weeds l to each part of you 

23 " Shall I attend or escort thee ? " So bring was often used. 

- 4 UnrolVd is struck off the roll, or expelled the fraternity of rogues. 

-5 To Aent is to take ; from the Anglo-Saxon hentan. — These lines are 
part of a catch printed in "An Antidote against Melancholy, made up in 
Pills, compounded of witty Ballads, j^: s, and merry Catches." 

1 Weeds is an old word for clothes or dress. The Prince alludes to the 
floral trimmings, which make Perdita seem a kind of muititudinous flower; 



SCENE III. THE WINTER S TALE. Ill 

Do give a life : no shepherdess ; but Flora 
Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing 
Is as a meeting of the petty gods, 
And you the queen on't. 

Per. Sir, my gracious lord, 

To chide at your extremes, 2 it not becomes me ; 
O, pardon that I name them ! your high self, 
The gracious mark o' the land, 3 you have obscured 
With a swain's wearing ; and me, poor lowly maid, 
Most goddess-like prank'd up : but that our feasts 
In every mess have folly, and the feeders 
Digest it with a custom, 4 I should blush 
To see you so attired ; more, I think, 
To see myself i' the glass. 

Flo. I bless the time 

When my good falcon made her flight across 
Thy father's ground. 

Per. Now Jove afford you cause ! 

To me the difference 5 forges dread ; your greatness 
Hath not been used to fear. Even now I tremble 
To think your father, by some accident, 
Should pass this way, as you did : O, the Fates ! 
How would he look, to see his work, so noble, 
Vilely bound up ? What would he say ? Or how 

all the adornings taking fresh life from her, and only diffusing the grace 
which they strive to eclipse, as if they were the proper outgrowth of her 
being. 

2 She means his extravagance in disguising himself in shepherd's clothes, 
while he pranked her up most goddess-like. 

3 The object of all men's notice and expectation. 

4 " Digest it with a custom " means, take it as natural, or think nothing 
of it, because they are used to it. 

6 Meaning the difference between his rank and hers. 



112 THE WINTERS TALE. ACT IV. 

Should I, in these my borrow'd flaunts, behold 
The sternness of his presence ? 

Flo. Apprehend 

Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves, 
Humbling their deities to love, have taken 
The shapes of beasts upon them : Jupiter 
Became a bull, and bellow'd ; the green Neptune 
A ram, and bleated ; and the fire-robed god, 
Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain, 
As I seem now. Their transformations 
Were never for a piece of beauty rarer ; 
Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires 
Run not before mine honour. 

Per. O, but, sir, 

Your resolution cannot hold, when 'tis 
Opposed, as it must be, by th' power o' the King : 
One of these two must be necessities, 

Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose, 
Or I my life. 

Flo. Thou dearest Perdita, 

With these forced thoughts, I pr'ythee, darken not 
The mirth o' the feast : or I'll be thine, my fair, 
Or not my father's ; for I cannot be 
Mine own, nor any thing to any, if 
I be not thine : to this I am most constant, 
Though destiny say no. Be merry, gentle ; 
Strangle such thoughts as these with any thing 
That you behold the while. Your guests are coming : 
Lift up your countenance, as it were the day 
Of celebration of that nuptial which 
We two have sworn shall come. 

Per. O Lady Fortune, 



SCENE HI. THE WINTERS TALE. 113 

Stand you auspicious ! 

Flo. See, your guests approach : 

Address yourself to entertain them sprightly, 
And let's be red with mirth. 

Enter the Shepherd, with Polixenes and Camillo disguised; 
the Clown, Mopsa, Dorcas, and other Shepherds and 
Shepherdesses. 

Shep. Fie, daughter ! when my old wife lived, upon 
This day she was both pantler, butler, cook ; 
Both dame and servant ; welcomed all, served all ; 
Would sing her song and dance her turn ; now here, 
At upper end o' the table, now i' the middle ; 
On his shoulder, and his ; her face o' fire 
With labour, and the thing she took to quench it, 
She would to each one sip. You are retired, 
As if you were a feasted one, and not 
The hostess of the meeting : pray you, bid 
These unknown friends to's welcome ; 6 for it is 
A way to make us better friends, more known. 
Come, quench your blushes, and present yourself 
That which you are, mistress o' the feast : come on, 
And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing, 
As your good flock shall prosper. 

Per. [To Polix.] Welcome, sir : 

It is my father's will I should take on me 
The hostess-ship o' the day. — \To Cam.] You're welcome, 

sir. — 
Give me those flowers there, Dorcas. — Reverend sirs, 
For you there's rosemary and rue ; these keep 
Seeming and savour all the Winter long : 

6 " These friends unknown to us," is the meaning. 



114 THE WINTERS TALE. ACT 

Grace and remembrance be to you both, 7 
And welcome to our shearing ! 

Polix. Shepherdess, — 

A fair one are you, — well you fit our ages 
With flowers of Winter. 

Per. Sir, the year growing ancient, — 

Not yet on Summer's death, nor on the birth 
Of trembling Winter, — the fair'st flowers o' the season 
Are our carnations, and streak'd gillyvors, 8 
Which some call nature's bastards : of that kind 
Our rustic garden's barren ; and I care not 
To get slips of them. 

Polix. Wherefore, gentle maiden, 

Do you neglect them ? 

Per. For 9 I have heard it said, 

There is an art which, in their piedness, shares 
With great creating Nature. 10 

Polix. Say there be ; 

Yet Nature is made better by no mean, 
But Nature makes that mean : so, even that art 



7 These plants were probably held as emblematic of grace and remem- 
brance, because they keep their beauty and fragrance "all the winter long." 

8 Spelt gillyvors in the original, and probably so pronounced at the time. 
Dyce thinks it should be retained as " an old form of the word." Douce 
says, " Gelofer, or gillofer was the old name for the whole class of carna- 
tions, pinks, and sweetwilliams ; from the French girofie? 

9 For was often used where we should use because. 

10 It would seem that variegated gilliflowers were produced by cross- 
breeding of two or more varieties ; as variegated ears of corn often grow from 
several sorts of corn being planted together. The gardener's art whereby 
this was done might properly be said to share with creating Nature. Douce 
says that " Perdita connects the gardener's art of varying the colours of 
these flowers with the art of painting the face, a fashion very prevalent in 
Shakespeare's time." 



scene in. THE WINTER'S TALE. 115 

Which you say adds to Nature, is an art 

That Nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry 

A gentler scion to the wildest stock, 

And make conceive a bark of baser kind 

By bud of nobler race : this is an art 

Which does mend Nature, — change it rather ; but 

The art itself is Nature. 11 

Per. So it is. 

Polix. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors, 
And do not call them bastards. 

Per. I'll not put 

The dibble in earth to set one slip of them ; 12 
No more than, were I painted, I would wish 
This youth should say, 'twere well. — Here's flowers for you ; 
Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram ; 
The marigold, that goes to bed wi' th' Sun, 
And with him rises weeping : 13 these are flowers 
Of middle Summer, and, I think, they're given 
To men of middle age. Ye're very welcome. 

Cam. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, 

11 This identity of Nature and Art is thus affirmed by Sir Thomas 
Browne : " Nature is not at variance with art, nor art with nature ; they 
both being the servants of the Providence of God. Art is the perfection of 
nature : were the world now as it was the sixth day, there were yet a chaos. 
Nature hath made one world and art another. In brief, all things are arti- 
ficial ; for nature is the art of God." 

12 Perdita is too guileless to take the force of Polixenes' reasoning ; she 
therefore assents to it, yet goes on to act as though there were nothing in 
it : her assent, indeed, is merely to get rid of the perplexity it causes her ; 
for it clashes with and disturbs her moral feelings and associations. — Dibble 
was the name of an instrument for making holes in the ground to plant 
seeds or to set plants in. 

13 The marigold here meant is the sun-flower. Thus spoken of in Lup- 
ton's Notable Things: "Some call it Sponsus So/is, the Spowsc of the 
Sunne, because it sleeps and is awakened with him." 



Il6 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT IV. 

And only live by gazing. 

Per. Out, alas ! 

You'd be so lean, that blasts of January 
Would blow you through and through. — Now, my fair'st 

friend, 
I would I had some flowers o' the Spring that might 
Become your time of day ; — and yours, and yours, 
That wear upon your virgin branches yet 
Your maidenhoods growing : —j O Proserpina, 
For th' flowers now, that, frighted, thou lett'st fall 
From Dis's wagon ! 14 golden daffodils, 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 15 
The winds of March with beauty ; violets dim, 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 
Or Cytherea's breath ; 16 pale primroses, 

14 "From Dis's wagon" means at the coming of Dis's wagon. — In 
Shakespeare's time wagon was often used where we should use chariot ; its 
application not being confined to the coarse common vehicle now called by 
that name. So in Mercutio's description of Queen Mab : " Her wagoner, a 
small gray-coated gnat " ; where later usage would require charioteer. — 
The story how, at the approach of Dis in his chariot, Proserpine, affrighted, 
let fall from her lap the flowers she had gathered, is told in the fifth book 
of Ovid's Metamorphoses ; familiar to the Poet, no doubt, in Golding's 
translation, 1587. 

15 To take here means to captivate, to entrance, or ravish with delight. 
We have a similar thought in Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 2 : " Purple the 
sails, and so perfumed that the winds were love-sick with them." 

16 " The beauties of Greece and some Asiatic nations tinged their eyelids 
of an obscure violet colour by means of some unguent, which was doubtless 
perfumed like those for the hair, &c, mentioned by Athenasus. Of the 
beauty and propriety of the epithet violets dim, and the transition at once 
to the lids of Juno's eyes and Cytherea's breath, no reader of taste and 
feeling need be reminded." Such is the common explanation of the pas- 
sage. But I suspect the sweetness of Juno's eyelids, as Shakespeare con- 
ceived them, was in the look, not in the odour. Much the same sweetness 
is ascribed to the sleeping Imogen's eyelids, in Cymbel'me, ii. 2: "These 



scene III. THE WINTERS TALE. 117 

That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
Bright Phoebus in his strength, — a malady 
Most incident to maids ; bold oxlips 17 and 
The crown-imperial ; lilies of all kinds, 
The flower-de-luce being one ! O, these I lack, 
To make you garlands of; and my sweet friend, 
To strew him o'er and o'er ! / 

Flo. What, like a corse ? 

Per. No, like a bank for love to lie and play on ; 
Not like a corse ; or if, — not to be buried, 
But quick, 18 and in mine arms. — Come, take your flowers : 
Methinks I play as I have seen them do 
In Whitsun pastorals : sure, this robe of mine 
Does change my disposition. 

Flo. What you do 

Still betters what is done. 19 When you speak, sweet, 
I'd have you do it ever : when you sing, 
I'd have you buy and sell so ; so give alms ; 
Pray so ; and, for the ordering your affairs, 
To sing them too : when you do dance, I wish you 
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do 
Nothing but that ; move still, still so, and own 

windows — white and azure — laced with blue of heaven's own tinct." — 
Probably violets are called dim, because their colour is soft and tender, not 
bold and striking. Or the epithet may have reference to the shyness of that 
flower ; as in Wordsworth's well-known lines, " A violet by a mossy stone, 
half hidden from the eye." 

17 The epithet bold in this place is justified by Steevens, on the ground 
that " the ox lip has not a weak flexible stalk like the cowslip, but erects itself 
boldly in the face of the Sun. Wallis, in his History of Northumberland, 
says that the great oxlip grows a foot and a half high." 

18 Quick in its original sense of living or alive, as in the Nicene Creed : 
"To judge both the quick and dead." 

19 Surpasses what is done. So the Poet often uses to better. 



Il8 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT IV. 

No other function. Each your doing is 

So singular in each particular, 

Crowning what you have done i' the present deed, 

That all your acts are queens. 20 

Per. O Doricles, 

Your praises are too large : but that your youth, 
And the true blood which peeps so fairly through't, 
Do plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd, 
With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles, 
You woo'd me the false way. 

Flo. I think you have 

As little skill 21 to fear as I have purpose 
To put you to't. 22 But, come ; our dance, I pray : 
Your hand, my Perdita : so turtles pair, 
That never mean to part. 

Per. I'll swear for 'em. 

Polix. This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever 
Ran on the green-sward : nothing she does or seems 
But smacks of something greater than herself, 
Too noble for this place. 

Cam. He tells her something 

That makes her blood look out : 23 good sooth, she is 

20 The idea pervading this exquisite speech evidently is, that Perdita 
does every thing so charmingly, that her latest doing always seems the best. 
Thus each later deed of hers is aptly said to crown what went before ; and 
all her acts are made queens in virtue of this coronation. 

21 Skill was often used in the sense of cunning or knowledge ; here it 
means reason, apparently, as Warburton explained it. So in Warner's 
Albions E?igla?id, 1606 : 

Our queen deceas'd conceal'd her heir, 
I wot not for what skill. 

22 " To put you to't " is to give you cause or occasion for it. 

23 Donne gives the sense of this very choicely in his Elegy on Mrs. 
Elizabeth Drury : 



SCENE ill. THE WINTER S TALE. I 1 9 

Tfhe queen of curds and cream. 

Clo. Come on, strike up ! 

Dor. Mopsa must be your mistress : marry, garlic, 
To mend her kissing with ! 

Mop. Now, in good time ! 

Clo. Not a word, a word ; we stand upon our manners. — 
Come, strike up ! 

[Music. A dance of Shepherds and Shepherdesses. 

Pollx. Pray you, good shepherd, what fair swain is this 
Which dances with your daughter ? 

Shep. They call him Doricles ; and boasts himself 
To have a worthy feeding : 24 I but have it 
Upon his own report, and I believe it ; 
He looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter : 
I think so too ; for never gazed the Moon 
Upon the water, as he'll stand, and read, 
As 'twere, my daughter's eyes : and, to be plain, 
I think there is not half a kiss to choose 
Who loves another best. 

Polix. She dances featly. 

Shep. So she does any thing ; though I report it, 
That should be silent : if young Doricles 
Do light upon her, she shall bring him that 
Which he not dreams of. 

We understood 
Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood 
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, 
That one might almost say, her body thought. 

24 Worthy feedi7ig has been rightly explained " a valuable tract of pas- 
turage ; such as might be a worthy offset to Perdita's dower." So in Dray- 
ton's Mooncalf: 

Finding the feeding, for which he had toil'd 
To have kept safe, by these vile cattle spoil'd. 



120 THE WINTERS TALE. 



Enter a Servant. 



Serif. master, if you did but hear the pedler at the door, 
you would never dance again after a tabor and pipe ; no, the 
bagpipe could not move you : he sings several tunes faster 
that you'll tell money; he utters them as he had eaten 
ballads, and all men's ears grow to his tunes. 

Clo. He could never come better ; he shall come in : I 
love a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter mer- 
rily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed, and sung 
lamentably. 

Serv. He hath songs for man or woman, of all sizes ; no 
milliner can so fit his customers with gloves : he has the 
prettiest love-songs for maids ; with such delicate burdens 
of dildos and fadings ; 25 jump her and thump her: and 
where some stretch-mouth' d rascal would, as it were, mean 
mischief, and break a foul jape 26 into the matter, he makes 
the maid to answer, Whoop, do me no harm, good man ; puts 
him off, slights him, with Whoop , do me no harm, good man?* 

Polix. This is a brave fellow. 

Clo. Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable-conceited 
fellow. Has he any embroided 28 wares ? 

25 " With a hie dildo dill, and a dildo dee " is the burden of an old bal- 
lad or two. Fadi?ig is also another burden to a ballad found in Shirley's 
Bird in a Cage. It is also the name given to an Irish dance, probably from 
fcedan, I whistle, as it was danced to the pipes. 

26 J a P e is J esi - The word does not occur again in Shakespeare, but is 
met with in several old writers. So in Coriat's Verses prefixed : 

The pilfering pastime of a crue of apes, 
Sporting themselves with their conceited japes. 

27 A ballad to the tune of " Oh ! do me no harm, good man," is given in 
The Famous History of Friar Bacon. 

28 Embroided is a shortened form of embroidered ; here used, appar- 
ently, in the general sense of ornamented or ornamental. 



SCENE III. THE WINTERS TALE. 121 

Sen). He hath ribands of all the colours i' the rainbow ; 
points 29 more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly 
handle, though they come to him by the gross ; inkles, cad- 
disses, 30 cambrics, lawns : why, he sings 'em over, as they 
were gods or goddesses ; you would think a smock were a 
she-angel, he so chants to the sleeve-hand, and the work 
about the square on't. 31 

Clo. Pr'ythee, bring him in ; and let him approach sing- 
ing. 

Per. Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in's 
tunes. \_Exit Servant. 

Clo. You have of these pedlers, that have more in them 
than you'd think, sister. 

Per. Ay, good brother, or go about to think. 32 

Enter Autolycus, singing. 

Lawn as white as driven snow ; 
- Cyprus black as e'er was crow ; 
Gloves as sweet as damask roses ; 
Masks for faces and for noses ; 
Bugle-bracelet, necklace-amber, 
Perfume for a lady's chamber ; 
Golden quoifs and stomachers, 
For my lads to give their dears ; 

29 A rather witty pun upon points, which was a term for the tags used to 
fasten or hold up the dress. So in / Henry IV., also with a pun : " Their 
points being broken, down fell their hose." See Twelfth Night, p. 44, note 3. 

80 Inkle was a kind of tape. — Caddis is explained by Malone " a narrow 
worsted galloon." , 

31 Sleeve-hand, the cuffs or wristband ; the square, the work about the 
bosom. The bosom-part of the chemise, as appears from old pictures and 
engravings, was often ornamented with embroidery. 

32 Wish or care to think is the meaning. 



122 THE WINTERS TALE. ACT IV. 

Pins and poking-sticks of steel ** 

What maids lack from head to heel : 

Come buy of me, come ; come buy, come buy ; 

Buy, lads, or else yoicr lasses cry : 

Come buy, 

Clo. If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take 
no money of me ; but, being enthrall' d as I am, it will also be 
the bondage of certain ribands and gloves. 

Mop. I was promised them against the feast ; but they 
come not too late now. 

Dor. He hath promised you more than that, or there be 
liars. 

Mop. He hath paid you all he promised you : may be, he 
has paid you more. 

Clo. Is there no manners left among maids? will they 
wear their plackets 34 where they should bear their faces ? Is 
there not milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln- 
hole, 35 to whistle-off these secrets, but you must be tittle-tat- 
tling before all our guests ? Tis well they are whispering. 
Clammer your tongues, 36 and not a word more. 

33 These poking-sticks are described by Stubbes in his Anatomie of 
Abuses, Part ii. : " They be made of yron and Steele, and some of brasse, 
kept as bright as silver, yea, some of silver itselfe ; and it is well if in pro- 
cesse of time they grow not to be of gold." Stowe informs us that " about 
the sixteenth yeare of the queene began the making of Steele poking-sticks \ 
and until that time all lawndresses used setting stickes made of wood or 
bone." They were heated and used for setting the plaits of ruffs. 

34 Placket has been variously explained. Sometimes it appears to have 
meant an apron. According to Halliwell, the term is still in use for a petty- 
coat, and in some places for a shift, a slit in the pettycoat, a pocket, &c. 

35 The fire-place for drying malt was a favourite place for gossipping. 

36 In reference to the strange word clammer, Mr. Joseph Crosby writes 
me as follows : " It is a pure North-of-England provincialism. The original 
word clam, or clamm, means to choke tip, to stick or fasten together ; and 



SCENE III. THE WINTERS TALE. 123 

Mop. I have done. Come, you promis'd me a tawdry- 
lace and a pair of sweet gloves. 37 

Clo. Have I not told thee how I was cozen'd by the way, 
and lost all my money ? 

Aut. And, indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad ; there- 
fore it behoves men to be wary. 

Clo. Fear not thou, man, thou shalt lose nothing here. 

Aut. I hope so, sir ; for I have about me many parcels of 
charge. 

Clo. What hast here ? ballads ? 

Mop. Pray now, buy some : I love a ballad in print a- 
life, 38 for then we are sure they are true. 

Aut. Here's one to a very doleful tune, How a usurer's wife 
long'd to eat adders' heads and toads carbonado 'd. 39 

Mop. Is it true, think you ? 

our word clammy comes from the same root. I have heard the expression, 
1 The mill is clammed* that is, stopped, because the ' race,' that is, the stream 
of water driving it, ' is choked up.' It is strange, I think, that our common 
word clammy never suggested the origin and meaning of clam or clammer 
to any of the Editors. It exactly corresponds to our American slang phrase 
dry up. I have, myself, heard clammed used of a person starved with hun- 
ger ; meaning that his bowels were so empty that they clammed or stuck 
together." — Sometimes the word was spelt clem ; and in further illustration 
of the point, I quote a passage from Massinger's Roman Actor, ii. i : " And 
yet I, when my entrails were clem?nd with keeping a perpetual fast, was 
deaf to their loud windy cries." See Critical Notes. 

87 A tawdry-lace was a sort of necklace worn by country wenches. So in 
The Faithful Shepherdess : " The primrose chaplet, tawdry lace, and ring." 
Spenser, in his Shepherd's Kalendar, mentions it as an ornament for the 
waist : " And gird your waste, for more fineness, with a tawdrie lace." 
Tawdries is used sometimes for necklaces in general. — Sweet or perfumed 
gloves are often mentioned by Shakespeare. 

88 A-life is as my life, mightily. — That any one should be sure a thing is 
true because of its being in print, seems rather odd to us. 

89 Carbonado 'd is slashed or cut across, as a piece of meat for broiling. 
The Poet has it repeatedly so. 



T24 THE WINTERS TALE. act IV. 

Aut. Very true ; and but a month old. 

Dor. Bless me from marrying a usurer ! 

Mop. Pray you now, buy it. 

Clo. Come on, lay it by : and let's first see more ballads ; 
we'll buy the other things anon. 

Aut. Here's another ballad, Of a fish, that appeared upon 
the coast on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand 
fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard 
hearts of maids : it was thought she was a woman, and was 
turn'd into a cold fish : the ballad is very pitiful, and as 
true. 40 

Dor. Is it true too, think you ? 

Aut. Five justices' hands at it, and witnesses more than 
my pack will hold. 

Clo. Lay it by too : another. 

Aut. This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one. 

Mop. Let's have some merry ones. 

Aut. Why, this is a passing merry one, and goes to the 
tune of, Two maids wooing a man : there's scarce a maid 
westward but she sings it ; 'tis in request, I can tell you. 

Mop. We can both sing it : if thou'lt bear a part, thou 
shalt hear ; 'tis in three parts. 

Dor. We had the tune on't a month ago. 

Aut. I can bear my part ; you must know 'tis my occupa- 
tion : have at it with you ! 

Song. 
Aut. Get you hence, for I must go ; 
Whe?-e, it fits not you to know. 
Dor. Whither? Mop. (9, whither? Dor. Whither? 

40 All extraordinary events were then turned into ballads. In 1604 was 
entered on the Stationers' books, " A strange report of a monstrousyfj/z that 
appeared in the form of a woman from her waist upward." 



THE WINTER'S TALE. 12$ 



Mop. // becomes thy oath full well, 

Thou to me thy secrets tell : 
Dor. Me too. let me go thither. 



6° 



Mop. Or thou go'st to th 1 grange or mill : 

Dor. If to either, thou dost ill. 

Aut. Neither. Dor. What, neither ? Aut. Neither. 

Dor. Thou hast sworn my love to be ; 

Mop. Thou hast sworn it more to me : 

Then, whither go 'st ? say, whither? 

Clo. We'll have this song out anon by ourselves : my 
father and the gentlemen are in sad 41 talk, and we'll not 
trouble them. — Come, bring away thy pack after me. — 
Wenches, I'll buy for you both. — Pedler, let's have the first 
choice. — Follow me, girls. \_Exit with Dorcas and Mopsa. 

Aut. And you shall pay well for 'em. — 

[Sings.] Will you buy any tape, or lace for your cape, 
My dainty duck, my dear-a ? 
Any silk, any thread, any toys for your head, 

Of the newest and finest, finest wear-a ? 
Come to the pedler ; money's a meddler, 

That doth utter 42 all men's ware-a ? [Exit. 

Re-enter Servant. 

Serv. Master, there is three goat-herds, three shepherds, 
three neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made them- 



41 Sad for earnest or serious ; a common usage of the time. 

42 A meddler is a busybody, one who has his finger in every one's dish. — 
To utter, as the word is here used, is to publish, to offer for sale, or to make 
current. Here the word is used as a causative verb, or in the sense of 
causing things to pass from hand to hand. 



126 THE WINTER'S TALE. act iv. 

selves all men of hair ; 43 they call themselves Saltiers : 44 and 
they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry 45 
of gambols, because they are not in't ; but they themselves 
are o' the mind, — if it be not too rough for some that know 
little but bowling, — it will please plentifully. 

Shep. Away ! we'll none on't : here has been too much 
homely foolery already. — I know, sir, we weary you. 

Polix. You weary those that refresh us : pray, let's see 
these four threes of herdsmen. 

Serv. One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath 
danced before the King ; and not the worst of the three but 
jumps twelve foot and a half by the squire. 46 

Shep. Leave your prating : since these good men are 
pleased, let them come in ; but quickly now. 

Serv. Why, they stay at door, sir. [Exit. 

Enter twelve Rustics habited like Satyrs, who dance, and 
then exeunt. 

Polix. O, father, you'll know more of that hereafter. 47 — 
\To Cam.] Is it not too far gone? Tis time to part them. 
He's simple and tells much. — How now, fair shepherd ! 
Your heart is full of something that does take 
Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young, 

43 It is most probable that they were dressed in goat-skins. A dance of 
satyrs was no unusual entertainment in Shakespeare's time, or even at an 
earlier period. Bacon, Essay 37, says of antimasques, " They have been 
commonly of fools, satyrs, baboons, wild men, antics, beasts, sprites, witches, 
Ethiopes, pigmies, turquets, nymphs, rustics, Cupids, statues moving, and 
the like." 

44 Saltiers is probably the Servant's blunder for satyrs, 

45 A gallimaufry is a medley, jumble, or hotchpotch. 

46 Squire or square was in common use for a carpenter's measuring-rule. 

47 This is an answer to something which the Shepherd is supposed to 
have said to Polixenes during the dance. 



SCENE III. THE WINTERS TALE. 127 

And handled love as you do, I was wont 

To load my she with knacks : I would have ransack'd 

The pedler's silken treasury, and have pour'd it 

To her acceptance ; you have let him go, 

And nothing marted with him. If your lass 

Interpretation should abuse, and call this 

Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited 

For a reply, at least if you make care 

Of happy holding her. 

Flo. Old sir, I know 

She prizes not such trifles as these are : 
The gifts she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd 
Up in my heart ; which I have given already, 
But not deliver'd. — O, hear me breathe my life 
Before this ancient sir, who, it should seem, 
Hath sometime loved ! I take thy hand, — 7this hand, 
As soft as dove's down, and as white as it, ' 
Or Ethiop's tooth, or the fann'd snow that's bolted 
By th' northern blasts twice o'er. 

Polix. What follows this ? — 

How prettily the young swain seems to wash 
The hand was fair before ! — I've put you out : 
But to your protestation ; let me hear 
What you profess. 

Flo. Do, and be witness to't. 

Polix. And this my neighbour too ? 

Flo. And he, and more 

Then he ; and men, the Earth, the Heavens, and all : 
That — were I crown 'd the most imperial monarch, 
Thereof most worthy ; were I the fairest youth 
That ever made eye swerve ; had force and knowledge 
More than was ever man's — I would not prize them 



128 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT IV. 

Without her love ; for her employ them all ; 
Commend them, and condemn them, to her service, 
Or to their own perdition. 48 

Polix. Fairly offer 'd. 

Cam. This shows a sound affection. 

Shep. But, my daughter, 

Say you the like to him ? 

Per. I cannot speak 

So well, nothing so well ; no, nor mean better : 
. By th' pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out 
The purity of his. 

Shep. Take hands, a bargain ! — 

And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to't : 
I give my daughter to him, and will make 
Her portion equal his. 

Flo. O, that must be 

I' the virtue of your daughter : one being dead, 
I shall have more than you can dream of yet ; 
Enough then for your wonder. But, come on, 
Contract us 'fore these witnesses. 

Shep. Come, your hand ; — 

And, daughter, yours. 

Polix. Soft, swain, awhile, beseech you : 

Have you a father? 

Flo. I have : but what of him ? 

Polix. Knows he of this ? 

Flo. He neither does nor shall. 

Polix. Methinks a father 
Is, at the nuptial of his son, a guest 
That best becomes the table. Pray you, once more ; 

4S That is, commit them to her service, or condemn them to their own 
destruction. See page 82, note 16. 



J 



SCENE ill. THE WINTERS TALE. 1 29 

Is not your father grown incapable 

Of reasonable affairs ? is he not stupid 

With age and altering fheums ? can he speak ? hear ? 

Know man from man ? dispute his own estate ? 49 

Lies he not bed-rid? and again does nothing 

But what he did being childish ? 

Flo. No, good sir ; 

He has his health, and ampler strength indeed 
Than most have of his age. 

Polix. By my white beard, 

You offer him, if this be so, a wrong 
Something unfilial : reason my son 
Should choose himself a wife ; 50 but as good reason 
The father — all whose joy is nothing else 
But fair posterity — should hold some counsel 
In such a business. 

Flo. I yield all this ; 

But, for some other reasons, my grave sir> 
Which 'tis not fit you know, I not acquaint 
My father of this business. 

Polix. Let him know't. 

Flo. He shall not. 

Polix. Pr'ythee, let him. 

Flo. No, he must not. 

Shep. Let him, my son : he shall not need to grieve 
At knowing of thy choice. 

Flo. Come, come, he must not. — 

Mark our contract. 

Polix. \_Discoveri?ig himself 7\ Mark your divorce, young sir, 

49 That is, reason or converse about his own affairs. So in Romeo and 
Juliet, iii. 3 : " Let me dispute with thee of thy estate." 

50 It is reason, or reasonable, that my son should choose, &c. 



I30 THE WINTERS TALE. ACT IV. 

Whom son I dare not call ; thou art too base 

To be acknowledged : thou a sceptre's heir, 

That thus affect'st a sheep-hook ! — Thou old traitor, 

I'm sorry that, by hanging thee, I can but 

Shorten thy life one week. — And thou, fresh piece 

Of excellent witchcraft, who, of force, must know 

The royal fool thou copest with, — 

Shep. O, my heart ! 

Polix. — I'll have thy beauty scratch' d with briars, and 
made 
More homely than thy state. — For thee, fond boy, 
If I may ever know thou dost but sigh 
That thou no more shalt see this knack, — as never 
I mean thou shalt, — we'll bar thee from succession ; 
Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin, 
Far' 51 than Deucalion off. Mark thou my words : 
Follow us to the Court. — Thou churl, for this time, 
Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee 
From the dead blow of it. — And you, enchantment, — 
Worthy enough a herdsman ; yea, him too 
That makes himself, but for our honour therein, 
Unworthy thee, — if ever henceforth thou 
These rural latches to his entrance open, 
Or hoop his body more with thy embraces, 
I will devise a death as cruel for thee 
As thou art tender to't. [Exit. 

Per. Even here undone I 

I was not much afeard ; for once or twice 
I was about to speak, and tell him plainly, 

51 Far\ in the old spelling, farre, that is, farther. The ancient compar- 
ative of fer was ferrer. This in the time of Chaucer was softened into 
ferre : " Thus was it peinted, I can say no ferre." 



SCENE III. THE WINTER S TALE. 1 3 I 

The selfsame Sun that shines upon his Court 

Hides not his visage from our cottage, but 

Looks on's alike. — {To Flo.] Will't please you, sir, be gone? 

I told you what would come of this. Beseech you, 

Of your own state take care : this dream of mine, — 

Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch further, 

But milk my ewes and weep. 52 

Cam. Why, how now, father ! 

Speak ere thou diest. 

Shep. I cannot speak, nor think, 

Nor dare to know that which I know. — \To Flo.] O sir, 
You have undone a man of fourscore-three, 
That thought to fill his grave in quiet ; yea, 
To die upon the bed my father died, 
To lie close by his honest bones ! but now 
Some hangman must put on my shroud, and lay me 
Where no priest shovels-in dust. 53 — \To Perdl] O cursed 

wretch, 
That knew'st this was the Prince, and wouldst adventure 
To mingle faith with him ! — Undone ! undone ! 
If I might die within this hour, IVe lived 
To die when I desire. 54 \_Exit. 

62 Coleridge says, " O, how more than exquisite is this whole speech ! 
And that profound nature of noble pride and grief venting themselves in a 
momentary peevishness of resentment towards Florizel : 'Wilt please you, 
sir, be gone ? ' " For my part, I should say, how more than exquisite is 
every thing about this unfledged angel ! 

53 In the old burial service, it was the custom for the priest to throw 
earth on the body in the form of a cross, and then sprinkle it with holy 
water. 

54 Some of the critics have been rather hard on the old Shepherd, for what 
they call his characteristic selfishness in thinking so much of his own life, 
though he be fourscore and three, and showing so little concern for Perdita 
and Florizel. But it is the thought, not so much of dying, as of dying like a 



132 THE WINTERS TALE. ACT IV. 

Flo. Why look you so upon me ? 

I am but sorry, not afeard ; delay 'd, 
But nothing alter' d : what I was, I am ; 
More straining on for plucking back ; not following 
My leash unwillingly. 

Cam. Gracious my lord, 

You know your father's temper : at this time 
He will allow no speech, — which I do guess 
You do not purpose to him ; — and as hardly 
Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear : 
Then, till the fury of his Highness settle, 
Come not before him. 

Flo. I not purpose it. 

I think Camillo ? 

Cam. Even he, my lord. 

Per. How often have I told you 'twould be thus 1 
How often said my dignity would last 
But till 'twere known ! 

Flo. It cannot fail but by 

The violation of my faith ; and then 
Let Nature crush the sides o' the earth together, 
And mar the seeds within ! Lift up thy looks : — ■ 
From my succession wipe me, father ! I 
Am heir to my affection. 

Cam. Be advised. 

Flo. I am, and by my fancy : 55 if my reason 
Will thereto be obedient, I have reason ; 



felon, that troubles and engrosses his mind. His unselfish honesty in the 
treatment of his foundling is quite apparent throughout. The Poet was 
wiser than to tempt nature overmuch, by making the innate qualities of his 
heroine triumphant over the influences of a selfish father. 
55 Here, as often, fancy means love. 



SCENE II r. THE WINTERS TALE. 1 33 

If not, my senses, better pleased with madness, 
Do bid it welcome. 

Cam. This is desperate, sir. 

/Flo. So call it : but it does fulfil my vow ; 
I needs must think it honesty. Camillo, 
Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may 
Be thereat glean'd ; for all the Sun sees, or 
The close earth wombs, or the profound sea hides 
In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath 
To this my fair beloved /therefore, I pray you, 
As you have ever been my father's honour'd friend, 
When he shall miss me, — as, in faith, I mean not 
To see him any more, — cast your good counsels 
Upon his passion : let myself and fortune 
Tug for the time to come. This you may know, 
And so deliver : I am put to sea 
With her whom here I cannot hold on shore ; 
And, most opp6rtune to our need, I have 
A vessel rides fast by, but not prepared 
For this design. What course I mean to hold 
Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor 
Concern me the reporting. 

Cam. O my /lord, 

I would your spirit were easier for advice, 
Or stronger for your need ! 

Flo. Hark, Perdita. — [ Takiiig her aside. 

[To Camillo.] I'll hear you by-and-by. 

Cam. He's irremovable, 

Resolved for flight. Now were I happy, if 
His going I could frame to serve my turn ; 
Save him from danger, do him love and honour ; 
Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia, 



134 THE WINTERS TALE. ACT IV. 

And that unhappy King my master, whom 
I so much thirst to see. 

Flo. Now, good Camillo, 

I am so fraught with serious business, that 
I leave out ceremony. 

Cam. Sir, I think 

You've heard of my poor services, i' the love 
That I have borne your father ? 

Flo. Very nobly 

Have you deserved : it is my father's music 
To speak your deeds ; not little of his care 
To have them recompensed as thought on. 

Cam. Well, my lord, 

If you may please to think I love the King, 
And, through him, what is near'st to him, which is 
Your gracious self, embrace but my direction, 
(If your more ponderous and settled project 
May suffer alteration,) on mine honour 
I'll point you where you shall have such receiving 
As shall become your Highness ; where you may 
Enjoy your mistress, — from the whom, I see, 
There's no disjunction to be made, but by, 
As Heavens forfend ! your ruin ; — marry her ; 
And — with my best endeavours in your absence — ■ 
Your discontenting 56 father strive to qualify, 
And bring him up to liking. 

Flo. How, Camillo, 

May this, almost a miracle, be done ? 
That I may call thee something more than man, 
And, after that, trust to thee. 

56 Disconte7iting for discontented ; an instance of the indiscriminate use 
of active and passive forms. See The Tempest, page 6o, note 59. 






SCENE III. THE WINTER S TALE. 1 35 

Cam, Have you thought on 

A place whereto you'll go ? 

Flo, Not any yet : 

I But as th' unthought-on accident is guilty 
To what we wildly do, 57 so we profess 
Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies 
Of every wind that blows. 

Cam, Then list to me : 

This follows : If you will not change your purpose. 
But undergo this flight, make for Sicilia ; 
And there present yourself and your fair Princess — 
For so I see she must be — 'fore Leontes : 
She shall be habited as it becomes 
The partner of your bed. Methinks I see 
Leontes opening his free arms, and weeping 
His welcomes forth \ asks thee, the son, forgiveness, 
As 'twere i' the father's person ; kisses the hands 
Of your fresh Princess ; o'er and o'er divides him 
'Twixt his unkindness and his kindness ; th' one 
He chides to Hell, and bids the other grow 
Faster than thought or time. 

Flo. Worthy Camillo, 

What colour for my visitation shall I 
Hold up before him? 

Cam, Sent by the King your father 

To greet him and to give him comfort. Sir, 
The manner of your bearing towards him, with 
What you, as from your father, shall deliver, 

57 This unthought-on accident is the unexpected discovery made by Polix- 
enes. — Guilty to, though it sound harsh to our ears, was the phraseology 
of Shakespeare. So in The Comedy of Errors^ iii. 2 : 
But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong, 
I'll stop my ears against the mermaid's song. 



/ 



I36 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT IV. 

Things known betwixt us three, I'll write you down : 
The which shall point you forth at every sitting 
What you must say ; that he shall not perceive 
But that you have your father's bosom there, 
And speak his very heart. 

Flo. I'm bound to you : 

There is some sap in this. 58 

Cam. A course more promising 

Than a wild dedication of yourselves 
To unpath'd waters, undream 'd shores, most certain 
To miseries enough ; no hope to help you, 
But, as you shake off one, to take another : 59 
Nothing so certain as your anchors ; who 
Do their best office, if they can but stay you 
Where you'll be loth to be. Besides, you know 
Prosperity's the very bond of love, 
Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together 
Affliction alters. , 

Per. One of these is true : 

I think affliction may subdue the cheek, 
But not take in the mind. 60 

Cam. Yea, say you so? 

There shall not, at your father's house, these seven years 
Be born another such. 

Flo. My good Camillo, 

She is as forward of her breeding as 

5 - Where there is sap there is life, and while there is life there is hope. 
The phrase was common, and occurs again in Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 13 : 
" There's sap in't yet." 

59 That is, "as you shake off one misery, you are sure to take on 
another." In what follows, Camillo means that it is better to steer for some 
fixed harbourage than to sail at random. 

60 Here, as often, to take in is to conquer or suldue. 



SCENE III. THE WINTERS TALE. 1 37 

F the rear our birth. 

Cam. I cannot say 'tis pity 

She lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress 
To most that teach. 

Per. Your pardon, sir ; for this 

I'll blush you thanks. 

Flo. My prettiest Perdita ! 

But, O, the thorns we stand upon ! — Camillo, — 
Preserver of my father, now of me, 
The medicine of our House ! — how shall we do ? 
We are not furnish' d like Bohemia's son, 
Nor shall appear so in Sicilia. 

Cam. My lord, 

Fear none of this : I think you know my fortunes 
Do all lie there : it shall be so my care 
To have you royally appointed, 61 as if 
The scene you play'd were mine. For instance, sir, 
That you may know you shall not want, one word. 

., \They talk aside. 

^ Re-enter Autolycus. 

Aut. Ha, ha ! what a fool Honesty is ! and Trust, his 
sworn brother, a very simple gentleman ! I have sold all my 
trumpery ; not a counterfeit stone, not a riband, glass, po- 
mander, brooch, table-book, 62 ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe- 
tie, bracelet, horn-ring, to keep my pack from fasting : they 

61 Appointed, here, is furnished or accoutred. Often so, both the verb 
and the noun. 

62 Pomanders were little balls of perfumed paste, worn in the pocket, or 
hung about the neck, and even sometimes suspended to the wrist, according 
to Phillips. They were used as amulets against the plague or other infec- 
tions, as well as for mere articles of luxury. — A table-book was a set of tab- 
lets, to be carried in the pocket, for writing memoranda upon. 



I38 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT IV. 

throng'd who should buy first, as if my trinkets had been 
hallowed, 63 and brought a benediction to the buyer : by 
which means I saw whose purse was best in picture ; 64 and 
what I saw, to my good use I remember'd. My clown — 
who wants but something to be a reasonable man — grew so 
in love with the wenches' song, that he would not stir his 
pettitoes 65 till he had both tune and words \ which so drew 
the rest of the herd to me, that all their other senses stuck in 
ears : I would 66 have filed keys off that hung in chains : no 
hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song, and admiring the 
nothing of it. So that, in this time of lethargy, I pick'd 
and cut most of their festival purses ; and had not the old 
man come in with a whoobub 67 against his daughter and 
the King's son, and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had 
not left a purse alive in the whole army. 

[Camillo, Florizel, and Perdita come forward. 

Cam. Nay, but my letters, by this means being there 
So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt. 

Flo. And those that you'll procure from King Leontes, — 

Cam. Shall satisfy your father. 

Per. Happy 68 be you ! 

All that you speak shows fair. 

63 This alludes to the beads often sold by the Romanists, as made par- 
ticularly efficacious by the touch of some relic. 

64 In picture seems to be used here as a sort of equivoque ; the sense of 
iti picki?ig being implied. 

65 The sense of pettitoes is petty toes ; here used humorously for feet. 

66 Would for could. The auxiliaries could, should, and would, were very 
often used indiscriminately. So later in this scene : " About his son, that 
should have married a shepherd's daughter " ; should for would. See The 
Tempest, page 83, note 30. 

67 Whoobub is an old equivalent for hubbub. 

68 Happy in the sense of prosperous, fortunate, or successful ; like the 
Latin felix. Repeatedly so. 



SCENE III. THE WINTERS TALE. 1 39 

Cam. [Seeing Autolycus.] Who have we here ? 
We'll make an instrument of this ; omit 
Nothing may give us aid. 

Aut. [Aside .] If they have overheard me now, — why, 
hanging. 

Cam. How now, good fellow ! why shakest thou so ? Fear 
not, man ; here's no harm intended to thee. 

Aut. I am a poor fellow, sir. 

Cam. Why, be so still ; here's nobody will steal that from 
thee : yet, for the outside of thy poverty, we must make an 
exchange ; therefore disease thee instantly, — thou must think 
there's a necessity in't, — and change garments with this gen- 
tleman : though the pennyworth on his side be the worst, yet 
hold thee, there's some boot. [ Giving money. 

Aut. I am a poor fellow, sir. — \_Aside.~\ I know ye well 
enough. 

Cam. Nay, pr'ythee, dispatch : the gentlemen is half flay'd 
already. 

Aut. Are you in earnest, sir? — [Aside. - ] I smell the trick 
on't. 

Flo. Dispatch, I pr'ythee. 

Aut. Indeed, I have had earnest ; but I cannot with con- 
science take it. 

Cam. Unbuckle, unbuckle. — 

[Florizel and Autolycus exchange garments. 
Fortunate mistress, — let my prophecy 
Come home to ye ! 69 — you must retire yourself 70 
Into some covert : take your sweetheart's hat, 
And pluck it o'er your brows \ muffle your face ; 

09 " May my use of the word fortunate be prophetic, and come home to 
you as such ! " 

70 " Withdraw yourself." So the Poet often uses retire. 



I4O THE WINTER S TALE. ACT IV. 

Dismantle you ; and, as you can, disliken 
The truth of your own seeming ; that you may — 
For I do fear eyes over us — to shipboard 
Get undescried. 

Per. I see the play so lies 

That I must bear a part. 

Cam. No remedy. — 

Have you done there? 

Flo. Should I now meet my father, 

He would not call me son. 

Ca?n. Nay, you shall have no hat. — 

\_Giving it to Perdita. 
Come, lady, come. — Farewell, my friend. 

Aut. Adieu, sir. 

Flo. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot ! 
Pray you, a word. [ They converse apart. 

Cam. \_Aside.~] What I do next, shall be to tell the King 
Of this escape, and whither they are bound ; 
Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail 
To force him after ; in whose company 
I shall review Sicilia, for whose sight 
I have a woman's longing. 

Flo. Fortune speed us ! — 

Thus we set on, Camillo, to th' sea-side. 

Cam. The swifter speed the better. 

\_Exeunt Florizel, Perdita, and Camillo. 

Aut. I understand the business, I hear it : to have an open 
ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a cut- 
purse ; a good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for the 
other senses. I see this is the time that the unjust man doth 
thrive. What an exchange had this been without boot ! 
what a boot is here with this exchange ! Sure, the gods do 



SCENE III. THE WINTERS TALE. IA1 

i 

this year connive at us, and we may do any thing extempore. 
The Prince himself is about a piece of iniquity, stealing 
away from his father with his clog at his heels : if I thought 
it were not a piece of honesty to acquaint the King withal, I 
would do't : I hold it the more knavery to conceal it; and 
therein am I constant to my profession. — 

Re-enter the Clown and Shepherd. 

Aside, aside ; here is more matter for a hot brain : every 
lane's end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a 
careful man work. 

Clo. See, see ; what a man you are now ! There is no 
other way but to tell the King she's a changeling, and none 
of your flesh and blood. 

Shep. Nay, but hear me. 

Clo. Nay, but hear me. 

Shep. Go to, then. 

Clo. She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh 
and blood has not offended the King \ and so your flesh and 
blood is not to be punish'd by him. Show those things you 
found about her ; those secret things, all but what she has 
with her : this being done, let the law go whistle ; I warrant you. 

Shep. I will tell the King all, every word, yea, and his 
son's pranks too ; who, I may say, is no honest man neither 
to his father nor to me, to go about to make me the King's 
brother-in-law. 

Clo. Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could 
have been to him ; and then your blood had been the dearer 
by I know not how much an ounce. 

Aut. [Aside 7\ Very wisely, puppies ! 

Shep. Well, let us to the King : there is that in this fardel 
will make him scratch his beard. 



142 THE WINTER S TALE. ACT IV. 

Aut \_Aside.~] I know not what impediment this com- 
plaint may be to the flight of my master. 

Clo. Pray heartily he be at the palace. 

Aut [Aside.'] Though I am not naturally honest, I am 
so sometimes by chance : let me pocket up my pedler's ex- 
crement. 71 [Takes off his false beard.~\ — How now, rustics ! 
whither are you bound ? 

Shep. To the palace, an it like your Worship. 

Aut Your affairs there, what ? with whom ? the condition 
of that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your names, your 
ages, of what having, breeding, and any thing that is fitting 
to be known ? discover. 

Clo. We are but plain fellows, sir. 

Aut A lie ; you are rough and hairy. Let me have no 
lying : it becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give 
us soldiers the lie : but we pay them for it with stamped coin, 
not stabbing steel; therefore they do not give us the lie. 72 

Clo. Your Worship had like to have given us one, if you 
had not taken yourself with the manner. 73 

Shep. Are you a courtier, an't like you, sir? 

Aut Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. See'st 
thou not the air of the Court in these enfoldings ? hath not 
my gait in it the measure of the Court ? receives not thy nose 
court-odour from me ? reflect I not on thy baseness court- 

71 Excrement, from the Latin excresco, was applied to such outgrowths 
of the human body as hair, nails, &c. See The Merchant, page 142, note 16. 

72 To give one the lie commonly meant to accuse him of lying, or to call 
him a liar. But Autolycus appears to be punning on the phrase, using it 
in the sense of dealing in lies, or cheating by means of falsehood, as he him- 
self has often done in selling his wares. Giving the lie in this sense is paid 
with money, and not with stabbing, as it is in the other sense. And, in 
lying his customers out of their cash, Autolycus has had his lies well paid 
for ; therefore he did not give them the lie. 

73 " Taken with the manner " is an old phrase for taken in the act. 



SCENE HI. THE WINTER S TALE. 1 43 

contempt ? Think'st thou, for that I insinuate, or touse 74 
from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am 
courtier cap-a-pie ; and one that will either push on or pluck 
back thy business there : whereupon I command thee to 
open thy affair. 

Shep. My business, sir, is to the King. 

Aut. What advocate hast thou to him ? 

Shep. I know not, an't like you. 

Clo. [Aside to Shep.] Advocate's the court- word for a 
pheasant : say you have none. 

Shep. None, sir ; I have no pheasant, 75 cock nor hen. 

Aut. How bless'd are we that are not simple men ! 
Yet Nature might have made me as these are ; 
Therefore I'll not disdain. 

Clo. \_Aside to Shep.] This cannot be but a great courtier. 

Shep. [Aside to Clo.] His garments are rich, but he wears 
them not handsomely. 

Clo. [Aside to Shep.] He seems to be the more noble in 
being fantastical : a great man, I'll warrant ; I know by the 
picking on's teeth. 

Aut. The fardel there? what's i' the fardel? Wherefore 
that box? 

Shep. Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box, 
which none must know but the King; and which he shall 

74 " Think'st thou, because I wind myself into thee, or draw from thee thy 
business, I am therefore no courtier ? " To touse is to pluck or draw out. 
As to touse or teize wool, Carpere lanam. 

75 It appears that pheasants were in special favour as presents of game 
to persons in authority, when any thing was wanted of them. Halliwell 
aptly illustrates the text by the following from the Journal of the Rev. (hies 
Moore, 1665 : " I gave to Mr. Cripps, Solicitor, for acting for me in obtain- 
ing my qualification, and effecting it, £1 10s. ; and I allowed my brother 
Luxford for going to London thereupon, and presenting my lord with two 
brace 0/ pheasants, 10s." 



144 THE WINTER S TALE. ACT IV. 

know within this hour, if I may come to the speech of 
him. 

Aut. Age, thou hast lost thy labour. 

Shep. Why, sir? 

Aut. The King is not at the palace ; he is gone aboard a 
new ship to purge melancholy and air himself : for, if thou 
be' st capable of things serious, thou must know the King is 
full of grief. 

Shep. So 'tis said, sir ; about his son, that should have 
married a shepherd's daughter. 

Aut. If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, 76 let him fly : 
the curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break 
the back of man, the heart of monster. 

Clo. Think you so, sir? 

Aut. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy 
and vengeance bitter ; but those that are germane 7? to him, 
though removed fifty times, shall all come under the hang- 
man : which though it 78 be great pity, yet it is necessary. 
An old sheep-whistling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer to have 
his daughter come into grace ! Some say he shall be stoned ; 
but that death is too soft for him, say I : draw our throne 
into a sheep-cote ! all deaths are too few, the sharpest too 
easy. 

Clo. Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear, an't 
like you, sir? 

Aut. He has a son ; who shall be flay'd alive ; then, 

76 That is, if he be not at large tinder bonds to appear and answer on a 
given day. Hand-fast is here equivalent to main-prize. 

77 Germane is related or akin ; used both of persons and of things. 

78 The doubling of the subject in relative clauses, as which and it in this 
place, is common in the old writers ; and sometimes happens with good 
writers even now, though probably through inadvertence. So, again, in the 
next scene : " Which that it shall, is all as monstrous," &c. 



SCENE in. THE WINTER S TALE. 1 45 

'nointed over with honey, set on the head of a wasp's-nest • 
there stand till he be three quarters and a dram dead ; then 
recover'd again with aqua-vitae or some other hot infusion ; 
then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication 
proclaims, 79 shall he be set against a brick-wall, the Sun look- 
ing with a southward eye upon him ; where he is to behold 
him with flies blown to death. But what talk we of these 
traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smiled at, their 
offences being so capital? Tell me — for you seem to be 
honest plain men — what you have to the King : being some- 
thing gently considered, 80 I'll bring you where he is aboard, 
tender your persons to his presence, whisper him in your 
behalfs ; and, if it be in man besides the King to effect your 
suits, here is man shall do it. 

Clo. [Aside to Shep.] He seems to be of great authority : 
close with him; give him gold/ an though 81 authority be a 
stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold/ Show 
the inside of your purse to the outside of his hand, ! and no 
more ado. Remember, stoned, and flay'd alive. 

Shep. An't please you, sir, to undertake the business for 
us, here is that gold I have : I'll make it as much more, and 
leave this young man in pawn till I bring it you. 

Aut. After I have done what I promised? 

Shep. Ay, sir. 

Aut. Well, give me the moiety. — Are you a party in this 
business ? 

79 Meaning the hottest day predicted by the almanac. Malone says, 
" Almanacs were in Shakespeare's time published under this title ; ' An 
Almanack and Prognostication made for the year of our Lord God 

*575.' " 

80 " Gently considered " here means liberally bribed. The use of consid- 
eration for recompense has been made familiar to readers of romance by 
old Trapbois, in The Fortunes of Nigel. 

81 An though is here equivalent, apparently, to although. 



I46 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT IV. 

Clo. In some sort, sir : but, though my case be a pitiful 
one, I hope I shall not be flay'd out of it. 82 

Aut. O, that's the case of the shepherd's son : hang him, 
he'll be made an example. 

Clo. [Aside to Shep.] Comfort, good comfort ! We must 
to the King, and show our strange sights : he must know 'tis 
none of your daughter nor my sister ; we are gone else. — 
Sir, I will give you as much as this old man does, when the 
business is perform 'd ; and remain, as he says, your pawn till 
it be brought you. 

Aut. I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side ; 
go on the right hand : I will but look upon the hedge, and 
follow you. 

Clo. [Aside to Shep.] We are bless'd in this man, as I 
may say, even bless'd. 

Shep. [Aside to Clo.] Let's before, as he bids us : he was 
provided to do us good. [Exeunt Shepherd and Clown. 

Aut. If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would 
not suffer me : she drops booties in my mouth. I am courted 
now with a double occasion, — gold, and a means to do the 
Prince my master good; which who knows but luck may 
turn to my advancement? I will bring these two moles, 
these blind ones, aboard him : if he think it fit to shore them 
again, and that the complaint they have to the King concerns 
him nothing, let him call me rogue for being so far officious ; 
for I am proof against that title, and what shame else belongs 
to't. To him will I present them : there may be matter 
in it. [Exit. 

82 The Clown, however uncorrupted with the sophistications of pen and 
ink, and though he may " have a mark to himself, like an honest plain- 
dealing man," is no clod-pole : his pun on case in this instance is something 
keen. 



SCENE I. THE WINTER S TALE. 1 47 



ACT V. 

Scene I. — Sicilia. A Room in the Palace of Leontes. 
Enter Leontes, Cleomenes, Dion, Paulina, and others, 

Cleo. Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd 
A saint-like sorrow : no fault could you make, 
Which you have not redeem'd ; indeed, paid down 
More penitence than done trespass : at the last, 
Do as the Heavens have done, forget your evil ; 
With them, forgive yourself. 

Leon. Whilst I remember 

Her and her virtues, I cannot forget 
My blemishes in them ; and so still think of 
The wrong I did myself : which was so much, 
That heirless it hath made my kingdom ; and 
Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man 
Bred his hopes out of. 

Paul. True, too true, my lord : 

If, one by one, you wedded all the world, 
Or from the all that are took something good, 
To make a perfect woman, she you kilPd 
Would be unparallel'd. 

Leon. I think so. KilPd ! 

Kill'd ! — she I kilPd ! I did so : but thou strikest me 
Sorely, to say I did ; it is as bitter 
Upon thy tongue as in my thought : now, good now, 
Say so but seldom. 

Cleo. Not at all, good lady : 

You might have spoke a thousand things that would 



I48 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT V. 

Have done the time more benefit, and graced 
Your kindness better. 

Paul. You are one of those 

Would have him wed again. 

Dion. If you would not so, 

You pity not the State, nor the remembrance 
Of his most sovereign name \ consider little 
What dangers, by his Highness' fail of issue, 
May drop upon his kingdom, and devour 
Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy 
Than to rejoice the former Queen is well? 1 
What holier than — for royalty's repair, 
For present comfort, and for future good — 
To bless the bed of majesty again 
With a sweet fellow to't? 

Paul There is none worthy, 

Respecting 2 her that's gone. Besides, the gods 
Will have fulfill' d their secret purposes ; 
For has not the divine Apollo said, 
Is't not the tenour of his oracle, 
That King Leontes shall not have an heir 
Till his lost child be found ? which that it shall, 
Is all as monstrous to our human reason 
As my Antigonus to break his grave 
And come again to me ; who, on my life, 
Did perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel 
My lord should to the Heavens be contrary, 



1 Is well is an old phrase for is dead ; that is, happy, or at rest. So in 
Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 5 : " We use to say the dead are well." 

2 Respecting, here, is in comparison with ; the only instance, I think, of 
the word so used. But the Poet often has in respect of in just the same 
sense. See As You Like It, page 81, note 13. 



SCENE I. THE WINTER S TALE. 1 49 

Oppose against their wills. — [To Leon.] Care not for issue ; 
The crown will find an heir : great Alexander 
Left his to th' 3 worthiest ; so his successor 
Was like to be the best. 

Leon. Thou good Paulina, 

Who hast the memory of Hermione, 
I know, in honour, O, that ever I 
Had squared me to thy counsel ! then, even now, 
I might have look'd upon my Queen's full eyes ; 
Have taken treasure from her lips, — 

Paul. And left them 

More rich for what they yielded. 

Leon. Thou speak'st truth. 

No more such wives ; therefore, no wife : one worse, 
And better used, would make her sainted spirit 
Again possess her corpse, and on this stage — 
Where we offend her now — appear, soul-vex'd, 
And begin, Why to me ? 

Paul. Had she such power, 

She had just cause. 

Leon. She had ; and would incense me 

To murder her I married. 

Paul. I should so. 

Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'd bid you mark 
Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't 
You chose her ; then I'd shriek, that even your ears 
Should rift to hear me ; and the words that follow'd 
Should be, Reme?nber ??iine. 

3 This elision of the, so as to make it coalesce with the preceding word 
into one syllable, has occurred many times in this play, and ought, perhaps, 
to have been noted before. So we have by th\ do tti , for tii ', from tli\ 
on th\ wl' th\ and others. See The Tempest, page 47, note 16. 



I50 THE WINTERS TALE. ACT V. 

Leon. Stars, stars, 

And all eyes else dead coals ! Fear thou no wife ; 
I'll have no wife, Paulina. 

Paul. Will you swear 

Never to marry but by my free leave ? 

Leon. Never, Paulina ; so be bless'd my spirit ! 

Paul. Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath. 

Cleo. You tempt him over-much. 

Paul. Unless another, 

As like Hermione as is her picture, 
Affront 4 his eye. 

Cleo. Good madam, — 

Paul. I have done. 

Yet, if my lord will marry, — if you will, sir, — 
No remedy, but you will, — give me the office 
To choose your Queen : she shall not be so young 
As was your former ; but she shall be such 
As, walk'd your first Queen's ghost, it should take joy 
To see her in your arms. 

Leon. My true Paulina, 

We shall not marry till thou bidd'st us. 

Paul. That 

Shall be when your first Queen's again in breath ; 
Never till then. 

Enter a Gentleman. 

Gent. One that gives out himself Prince Florizel, 
Son of Polixenes, with his Princess, — she 
The fair'st I've yet beheld, — desires access 

4 Affront is meet or e?icounter. Shakespeare uses this word with the 
same meaning in Hamlet, iii. 1 : " That he, as 'twere by accident, may here 
affront Ophelia." And in Cymbel'me : " Your preparation can affro?it no 
less than what you hear of." Lodge, in the Preface to his Translation of 
Seneca, says, " No soldier is counted valiant that affronteth not his enemie." 



SCENE I. THE WINTER'S TALE. 151 

To your high presence. 

Leon. What with him ? he comes not 

Like to his father's greatness : his approach, 
So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us 
'Tis not a visitation framed, but forced 
By need and accident. What train ? 

Gent. But few, 

And those but mean. 

Leon. His Princess, say you, with him? 

Gent. Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think, 
That e'er the Sun shone bright on. 

Paul. O Hermione, 

As every present time doth boast itself 
Above a better gone, so must thy grave 5 
Give way to what's seen now ! Sir, you yourself 
Have said and writ so, — but your writing now 
Is colder than that theme, — She had not been, 
Nor was not to be equalVd. Thus your verse 
Flow'd with her beauty once : 'tis shrewdly ebb'd, 
To say you've seen a better. 

Gent. Pardon, madam : 

The one I have almost forgot, — your pardon ; 
The other, when she has obtain'd your eye, 
Will have your tongue too. This is such a creature, 
Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal 
Of all professors else ; 6 make proselytes 
Of whom she but bid follow. 

Paul. How ! not women? 

Gent. Women will love her, that she is a woman 

5 This, if the text be right, must mean, as Edwards observes, " thy beau- 
ties, which are buried in the grave " ; the container for the contained. 
G Put them out of heart and hope by surpassing them. 



152 THE WINTERS TALE. ACT V. 

More worth than any man ; men, that she is 
The rarest of all women. 

Leon. Go, Cleomenes ; 

Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends, 
Bring them to our embracement. [Exeunt Cleo. and others. 

Still, 'tis strange 
He thus should steal upon us. 

Paul. Had our Prince, 

Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd 
Well with this lord : there was not full a month 
Between their births. 

Leon. Pr'ythee, no more ; thou know'st 

He dies to me again when talk'd of: sure, 
When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches 
Will bring me to consider that which may 
Unfurnish me of reason. They are come. — 

Re-enter Cleomenes and others, with Florizel and Perdita. 

Your mother was most true to wedlock, Prince ; 
For she did print your royal father off, 
Conceiving you : were I but twenty-one, 
Your father's image is so hit in you, 
His very air, 7 that I should call you brother, 
As I did him, and speak of something wildly 
By us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome ! 
And your fair princess-goddess ! O, alas, 
I lost a couple, that 'twixt heaven and earth 
Might thus have stood, begetting wonder, as 
You gracious couple do ! and then I lost — 
All mine own folly — the society, 

7 Air for look, appearance, or total expression. So in the preceding 
scene : " See'st thou not the air of the Court in these enfoldings ? " 



SCENE I. THE WINTERS TALE. 1 53 

Amity too, of your brave father, whom, 
Though bearing misery, I desire my life 
Once more to look on him. 8 

Flo. By his command 

Have I here touch'd Sicilia, and from him 
Give you all greetings, that a king, at friend, 9 
Can send his brother : and, but 10 infirmity — 
Which waits upon worn times — hath something seized 
His wish'd ability, he had himself 
The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his 
Measured to look upon you ; whom he loves — 
He bade me say so — more than all the sceptres, 
And those that bear them, living. 

Leon. O my brother, 

Good gentleman, the wrongs I've done thee stir 
Afresh within me ; and these thy offices, 
So rarely kind, are as interpreters 
Of my behindhand slackness ! — > Welcome hither, 
As is the Spring to th' earth. And hath he too 
Exposed this paragon to th' fearful usage — 
At least ungentle — of the dreadful Neptune, 
To greet a man not worth her pains, much less 
Th' adventure of her person ? 

Flo. Good my lord, 11 

8 Here we have a relative clause with the object doubled, whom and him. 
See page 144, note 78. — The meaning in the text is, " whom I desire to live 
to see again, though life is a misery to me." 

9 At friend is plainly equivalent to on terms of friendship. And why not 
at friend as well as " at feud " ? which is a common phrase. 

10 The exceptive but; equivalent to be out that, or but that. Often so. 
See The Tempest, page 47, note 16. 

11 We should say, " my good lord." But such inversions occur contin- 
ually in Shakespeare, and other writers of his time. So we have "gentle 
my brother/' " sweet my sister," " dear my mother," " gracious my lord," &c. 



154 THE WINTERS TALE. ACT V. 

She came from Libya. 

Leon. Where the warlike Smalus, 

That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and loved? 

Flo. Most royal sir, from thence ; from him, whose 
daughter 
His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her : thence, 
A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd, 
To execute the charge my father gave me, 
For visiting your Highness : my best train 
I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd ; 
Who for Bohemia bend, to signify 
Not only my success in Libya, sir, 
But my arrival, and my wife's, in safety 
Here where we are. 

Leon. The blessed gods 

Purge all infection from our air whilst you 
Do climate here ! You have a holy 12 father, 
A graceful gentleman ; against whose person, 
So sacred as it is, I have done sin : 
For which the Heavens, taking angry note, 
Have left me issueless \ and your father's bless 'd, 
As he from Heaven merits it, with you, 
Worthy his goodness. What might I have been, 
Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on, 
Such goodly things as you ! 

Enter a Lord. 

Lord. Most noble sir, 

That which I shall report will bear no credit, 
Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir, 

12 Holy for just, righteous, or good. Often so. See The Tempest, page 
135, note 11. 



SCENE I. THE WINTERS TALE. 155 

Bohemia greets you from himself by me ; 
Desires you to attach his son, who has — 
His dignity and duty both cast off — 
Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with 
A shepherd's daughter. 

Leon, Where's Bohemia? speak. 

Lord. Here in your city ; I now came from him : 
I speak amazedly ; and it becomes 
My marvel and my message. To your Court 
Whiles he was hastening, — in the chase, it seems, 
Of this fair couple, — meets he on the way 
The father of this seeming lady, and 
Her brother, having both their country quitted 
With this young Prince. 

Flo. Camillo has betray'd me ; 

Whose honour and whose honesty till now 
Endured all weathers. 

Lord. Lay't so to his charge : 

He's with the King your father. 

Leon. Who? Camillo? 

Lord. Camillo, sir ; I spake with him ; who now 
Has these poor men in question. 13 Never saw I 
Wretches so quake : they kneel, they kiss the earth ; 
Forswear themselves as often as they speak : 
Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them 
With divers deaths in death. 

Per. O my poor father ! — 

The Heaven sets spies upon us, will not have 
Our contract celebrated. 

Leon. You are married? 

Flo. We are not, sir, nor are we like to be ; 

13 Question, again, for talk or conversation. See page 104, note 4. 



I56 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT V. 

The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first : 
The odds for high and low's alike. 14 

Leon. My lord, 

Is this the daughter of a king ? 

Flo. She is, 

When once she is my wife. 

Leon. That once, I see by your good father's speed, 
Will come on very slowly. I am sorry, 
Most sorry, you have broken from his liking, 
Where you were tied in duty ; and as sorry 
Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty, 
That you might well enjoy her. 

Flo. Dear, look up : 

Though fortune, visible an enemy, 
Should chase us, with my father, power no jot 
Hath she to change our loves. — Beseech you, sir, 
Remember since 15 you owed no more to time 
Than I do now : with thought of such affections, 
Step forth mine advocate ; at your request 
My father will grant precious things as trifles. 

Leon. Would he do so, I'd beg your precious mistress, 
Which he counts but a trifle. 

Paul. Sir, my liege, 

Your eye hath too much youth in't : not a month 



14 An obscure passage ; but probably meaning that the liklihood or 
chance of success in a " course of true love " is the same for all ranks of 
people. Odds is, properly, the difference between two or more things ; 
hence it not unnaturally draws into the sense of probability. We have a 
like use of odds in Cymbeline, v. 2: " If thy gentry, Britain, go before this 
lout as he exceeds our lords, the odds is, that we scarce are men, and you 
are gods." 

15 Since where present usage requires when, and meaning the time when. 
Repeatedly so. See A Midsummer, page 46, note 23. 



SCENE II. THE WINTERS TALE. 157 

Tore your Queen died, she was more worth such gazes 
Than what you look on now. 

Leon. I thought of her, 

Even in these looks I made. 16 — \To Florizel.] But your 

petition 
Is yet unanswer'd. I will to your father : 
Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires, 
I'm friend to them and you : upon which errand 
I now go toward him ; therefore follow me, 
And mark what way I make : 17 come, good my lord. \_Exeunt. 



Scene II. — The Same. Before the Palace of Leontes. 
Enter Autolycus and a Gentleman. 

Aut. Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation ? 

i Gent. I was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the 
old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it : where- 
upon, after a little amazedness, we were all commanded out 
of the chamber ; only this, methought I heard the shepherd 
say he found the child. 

16 The Poet seems rather fond of the idea here suggested. The reason 
why Leontes takes so quickly and so strongly to Perdita is, because he in- 
stinctively and unconsciously recognises in her a new edition, as it were, of 
Hermione. He cannot keep his eyes off the stranger, and while looking on 
her cannot keep his thoughts off her mother, as if he almost felt the pres- 
ence of the one in the other. The same thing occurs between the exiled 
Duke and the disguised Rosalind in As You Like It; also between the King 
and the disguised Imogen in Cymbeline. Scott has a very charming in- 
stance of the same subtile tricks of association in The Antiquary, where 
Oldbuck's heart goes out instantly to Lovell on first meeting with him ; 
and he cannot imagine why it is so until, near the end, he finds Lovell to 
be the son of a woman whom he had tenderly loved, and whose sad death 
he had deeply mourned, many years before. 

17 " Observe how I speed," or " what progress I make." 



158 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT V. 

Aut. I would most gladly know the issue of it. 

1 Gent. I make a broken delivery of the business ; but 
the changes I perceived in the King and Camillo were very 
notes of admiration : x they seem'd almost, with staring on 
one another, to tear the cases of their eyes ; there was 
speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture ; 
they looked as they had heard of a world ransom'd, or one 
destroy'd : a notable passion of wonder appeared in them j 
but the wisest beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could 
not say if the importance 2 were joy or sorrow; but in the 
extremity of the one it must needs be. Here comes a 
gentleman that happily 3 knows more. — 

Enter another Gentleman. 

The news, Rogero? 

2 Gent. Nothing but bonfires : the oracle is fulfilled ; the 
King's daughter is found : such a deal of wonder is broken 
out within this hour, that ballad-makers cannot be able to 
express it. Here comes the Lady Paulina's steward : he 
can deliver you more. — 

Enter a third Gentleman. 

How goes it now, sir? this news, which is call'd true, is so 



1 Were real signs and tokens of wonder. Very, for veritable or true, 
occurs repeatedly ; as also admiration for wonder, the classical sense of the 
word. See The Tempest, page 140, note 29. 

2 Importance for import, the thing imported or meant. The word is so 
used again in Cymbeline, i. 5 : " Upon importance of so slight and trivial a 
nature." Also in Bishop Stillingfleet's Rational Account, Part i., chapter 7 : 
" Men cannot come to the natural sense and importance of the words used 
in Scripture, unless they rely on the authority of men for the signification 
of those words." 

3 The Poet often uses happily for haply, that is, perhaps. 



SCENE II. THE WINTERS TALE. 1 59 

like an old tale, that the verity of it is in strong suspicion : 
has the King found his heir ? 

J Gent. Most true, if ever truth were pregnant 4 by cir- 
cumstance : that which you hear you'll swear you see, there 
is such unity in the proofs. The mantle of Queen Her- 
mione's ; her jewel about the neck of it ; the letters of Anti- 
gonus, found with it, which they know to be his character ; 5 
the majesty of the creature, in resemblance of the mother ; 
the affection 6 of nobleness, which nature shows above her 
breeding ; and many other evidences, — proclaim her with 
all certainty to be the King's daughter. Did you see the 
meeting of the two Kings ? 

2 Gent No. 

J Gent, Then have you lost a sight, which was to be 
seen, cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld 
one joy crown another, so and in such manner, that it seem'd 
sorrow wept to take leave of them ; for their joy waded in 
tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands, 
with countenance of such distraction, that they were to be 
known by garment, not by favour. Our King, being ready 
to leap out of himself for joy of his found daughter, as if that 
joy were now become a loss, cries, O, thy mother, thy 
mother 1 then asks Bohemia forgiveness ; than embraces his 
son-in-law ; then again worries he his daughter with clipping 7 

4 Pregnant here means full of proof convincing : several times used thus 
by Shakespeare ; as in Othello, ii. i : " It is a most preg?iant and unforced 
position." 

5 Character for handwriting. So in Hamlet, iv. 4 : " Laer. Know you 
the hand? King. Tis Hamlet's character ." And in the Poet's 59th Son- 
net : " Since mind at first in character was done." 

6 Affection in one of the classical senses of the verb to affect ; that is, 
native tendency, bent of mind, aspiration, or aptitude. 

7 To embrace is one of the old senses of to clip. See The Tempest, page 
120, note 15. 



l60 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT V. 

her ; now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands by like 
a weather- bitten conduit 8 of many king's reigns. I never 
heard of such another encounter, which lames report to 
follow it, and undoes description to do it. 

2 Gent. What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that 
carried hence the child? 

3 Gent. Like an old tale still, which will have matter 
to rehearse, though credit be asleep, and not an ear open. 
He was torn to pieces with a bear : this avouches the shep- 
herd's son ; who has not only his innocence, which seems 
much, to justify him, but a handkerchief and rings of his, 
that Paulina knows. 

i Gent. What became of his bark and his followers ? 

3 Gent. Wreck'd the same instant of their master's death, 
and in the view of the shepherd : so that all the instruments 
which aided to expose the child were even then lost when it 
was found. But, O, the noble combat that, 'twixt joy and 
sorrow, was fought in Paulina ! She had one eye declined 
for the loss of her husband, another elevated that the oracle 
was fulfill'd : she lifted the Princess from the earth ; and so 
locks her in embracing, as if she would pin her to her heart, 
that she might no more be in danger of losing her. 

i Gent. The dignity of this act was worth the audience of 
kings and princes, for by such was it acted. 

3 Gent. One of the prettiest touches of all, and that which 
angled for mine eyes — caught the water, though not the 
fish — was when, at the relation of the Queen's death, with 
the manner how she came to't, — bravely confess 'd and la- 
mented by the King, — how attentiveness wounded his daugh- 
ter ; till, from one sign of dolour to another, she did, with an 

8 Conduit is fountain; and figures of men and women, in bronze or 
marble, were often used for fountains. See As You Like It, page 112, note 13. 



SCENE ii. THE WINTER'S TALE. l6l 

Alas, I would fain say, bleed tears ; for I am sure my heart 
wept blood. Who was most marble there changed colour ; 
some swooned, all sorrow'd : if all the world could have seen't, 
the woe had been universal. 

i Gent. Are they returned to the Court ? 

3 Gent. No : the Princess hearing of her mother's statue, 
which is in the keeping of Paulina, — a piece many years in 
doing, and now newly perform'd by that rare Italian master, 
Julio Romano, who, had he himself eternity, 9 and could put 
breath into his work, would beguile Nature of her custom, so 
perfectly he is her ape : he so near to Hermione hath done 
Hermione, that they say one would speak to her, and stand 
in hope of answer. Thither with all greediness of affection 
are they gone ; and there they intend to sup. 

2 Gent. I thought she had some great matter there in 
hand ; for she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever since 
the death of Hermione, visited that removed 10 house. Shall 
we thither, and with our company piece the rejoicing? 

i Gent. Who would be thence that has the benefit of 
access ? every wink of an eye, some new grace will be born : 
our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge.] Let's 
along. \_Exeunt Gentlemen. 

9 Eternity here means immortality. It would seem that a painted statue 
was no singularity in that age : Ben Jonson, in his Magnetic Lady, makes it 
a reflection on the bad taste of the city. 

Rut. I'd have her statue cut now in white marble. 
Sir Moth. And have it painted in most orient colours. 
Rut. That's right! all city statues must be painted, 
Else they be worth nought in their subtle judgments. 

Sir Henry Wotton, who had travelled much, calls it an English barbarism. 
But painted statues were known to the Greeks, as appears from the accounts 
of Pausanias and Herodotus. 

10 Removed is retired, solitary, or sequestered. Repeatedly so. See As 
You Like It, page 91, note 42. 



l62 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT V. 

Aut. Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me, 
would preferment drop on my head. I brought the old man 
and his son aboard the Prince ; n told him I heard them talk 
of a fardel, and I know not what : but, he at that time over- 
fond of the shepherd's daughter, — so he then took her to be, 
— who began to be much sea-sick, and himself little better, 
extremity of weather continuing, this mystery remained un- 
discover'd. But 'tis all one to me ; for, had I been the finder- 
out of this secret, it would not have relish'd among my other 
discredits. Here come those I have done good to against 
my will, and already appearing in the. blossoms of their 
fortune. 

Enter the Shepherd and Clown, richly dressed. 

Shep. Come, boy ; I am past more children, but thy sons 
and daughters will be all gentlemen born. 

Clo. You are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me 
this other day, because I was no gentleman born. See you 
these clothes ? say you see them not, and think me still no 
gentleman born : you were best say these robes are not gen- 
tlemen born. Give me the lie, do ; and try whether I am not 
now a gentleman born. 

Aut. I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born. 

Clo. Ay, and have been so any time these four hours. 

Shep. And so have I, boy. 

Clo. So you have : — but I was a gentleman born before 
my father ; for the King's son took me by the hand, and call'd 
me brother ; and then the two Kings call'd my father brother ; 
and then the Prince my brother and the Princess my sister 



11 That is, aboard Prince Florizel's ship. In iv. 3, the Prince says to 
Camillo, " most opportune to our need, I have a vessel rides fast by," &c. . 



SCENE II. THE WINTER'S TALE. 1 63 

call'd my father father : and so we wept ; and there was the 
first gentleman-like tears that ever we shed. 

Shep. We may live, son, to shed many more. 

Clo. Ay ; or else 'twere hard luck, being in so preposterous 
estate 12 as we are. 

Aut. I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the faults 
I have committed to your Worship, and to give me your good 
report to the Prince my master. 

Shep. Pr'ythee, son, do ; for we must be gentle, now we 
are gentlemen. 

Clo. Thou wilt amend thy life ? 

Aut. Ay, an it like your good Worship. 

Clo. Give me thy hand : I will swear to the Prince thou 
art as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia. 

Shep. You may say it, but not swear it. 

Clo. Not swear it, now I am a gentleman ? Let boors and 
franklins say it, I'll swear it. 

Shep. How if it be false, son ? 

Clo. If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear it 
in the behalf of his friend : — and I'll swear to the Prince 
thou art a tall fellow of thy hands, 13 and that thou wilt not be 
drunk ; but I know thou art no tall fellow of thy hands, and 
that thou wilt be drunk : but I'll swear it; and I would thou 
wouldst be a tall fellow of thy hands. 

Aut. I will prove so, sir, to my power. 

Clo. Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow : if I do not 

12 Estate and state were used interchangeably. Preposterous is the 
Clown's blunder, perhaps intentional, for prosperous : for this Clown is a 
most Shakespearian compound of shrewdness and simplicity, and has 
something of the " allowed Fool " in his character ; by instinct, of course. 

13 A bold, courageous fellow. Autolycus chooses to understand the 
phrase in one of its senses, which was that of nimble handed, working with 
his hands, a fellow skilled in thievery. Sec Twelfth Night, page 35, note 4. 



164 THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT V. 

wonder how thou darest venture to be drunk, not being a tall 
fellow, trust me not. [Trumpets within.~] Hark ! the Kings 
and the Princes, our kindred, are going to see the Queen's 
picture. 14 Come, follow us : we'll be thy good masters. 15 

[Exeunt 



iX 



Scene III. — The Same. A Chapel in Paulina's House. 

Enter Leontes, Polixenes, Florizel, Perdita, Camillo, 
Paulina, Lords, and Attendants. 

Leon. O grave and good Paulina, the great comfort 
That I have had of thee ! 

Paul. What, sovereign sir, 

I did not well, I meant well. All my services 
You have paid home : but, that you have vouchsafed, 
With your crown'd brother and these your contracted 
Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit, 
It is a surplus of your grace, which never 
My life may last to answer. 

Leon. O Paulina, 

We honour you with trouble. 1 But we came 

14 The words picture and statue were sometimes used indiscriminately ; 
which Collier thinks may have grown from the custom of painting statues. 
So in Heywood's If you know not me, you know Nobody : 

Your ship, in which all the king's pictures were, 
From Brute unto our Queen Elizabeth, 
Drawn in white marble, by a storm at sea 
Is wreck'd, and lost. «. 

15 It was a common petitionary phrase to ask a superior to be good lord 
ox good master to the supplicant. So, in 2 Henry IV., iv. 3, Falstaff says to 
Prince John, " I beseech you, when you come to the Court, stand my good 
lord" ; that is, " be my friend or patron." 

1 Trouble, and not honour, is the emphatic word here. " The honour we 
are doing you puts you to trouble." A similar thought occurs in Macbeth, 



SCENE III. THE WINTER'S TALE. 1 65 

To see the statue of our Queen : your gallery 
Have we pass'd through, not without much content 
In many singularities ; but we saw not 
That which my daughter came to look upon, 
The statue of her mother. 

Paul. As she lived peerless, 

So her dead likeness, I do well believe, 
Excels whatever yet you look'd upon, 
Or hand of man hath done ; therefore I keep it 
Lonely, apart. But here it is : prepare 
To see the life as lively mock'd as ever 
Still sleep mock'd death : behold, and say 'tis well. 

[Paulina draws back a curtain, and discovers 
Hermione standing as a statue. 
I like your silence \ it the more shows off 
Your wonder : but yet speak ; — first, you, my liege : 
Comes it not something near? 

Leon. Her natural posture ! — 

Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed 
Thou art Hermione ; or rather, thou -art she 
In thy not chiding, — for she was as tender 
As infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina, 
Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing 
So aged as this seems. 

Polix. O, not by much. 

Paul. So much the more our carver's excellence ; 
Which lets go by some sixteen years, and makes her 
As 2 she lived now. 

Leo?i. As now she might have done, 

i. 6 : " The love that follows us sometime is our trouble, which still we thank 
as love." 

2 As for as //"occurs very often in Shakespeare. 



1 66 the winter's tale. 

So much to my good comfort, as it is 

Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood, 

Even with such life of majesty, — warm life, 

As now it coldly stands, — when first I woo'd her ! 

I am ashamed :- does not the stone rebuke me 

For being more stone than it ? — O royal piece, 

There's magic in thy majesty ; which has 

My evils c6njured to remembrance, and 

From thy admiring 3 daughter took the spirits, 

Standing like stone with thee ! 

Per. And give me leave, 

And do not say 'tis superstition that 
I kneel, and then implore her blessing. — Lady, 
Dear Queen, that ended when I but began, 
Give me that hand of yours to kiss. 

Paul. O, patience ! 

The statue is but newly fix'd, the colours 
Not dry. 

Cam. My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on, 
Which sixteen Winters cannot blow away, 
So many Summers dry : scarce any joy 
Did ever so long live \ no sorrow but 
It kill'd itself much sooner. 

Polix. Dear my brother, 

Let him that was the cause of this have power 
To take off so much grief from you as he 
Will piece up in himself. 

Paul. Indeed, my lord, 

If I had thought the sight of my poor image 
Would thus have wrought you, — for the stone is mine, ■ 
I'd not have show'd it. 

3 Admiring is wondering^ here, as usual. See page 158, note 1. 



SCENE III. THE WINTER'S TALE. 1 67 

Leon. Do not draw the curtain. 

Paul. No longer shall you gaze on't, lest your fancy 
May think anon it moves. 

Leon. Let be, let be. 

Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already 4 — 
What was he that did make it ? — See, my lord, 
Would you not deem it breathed ? and that those veins 
Did verily bear blood ? 

Polix. Masterly done : 

The very life seems warm upon her lip. 

Leon. The fixture of her eye has motion in% 5 
• And we are mock'd with art. 

Paul. I'll draw the curtain : 

My lord's almost so far transported, that 
He'll think anon it lives. 

Leon. O sweet Paulina, 

Make me to think so twenty years together ! 
No settled senses of the world can match 
The pleasure of that madness. Let 't alone. 

Paul. I'm sorry, sir, I've thus far stirr'd you ; but 
I could afflict you further. 

4 The expression, "Would I were dead," &c., is neither more nor less 
than an imprecation, equivalent to Would I may die, &c. ; and the King's 
real meaning, in reference to Paulina's remark, that he will think anon it 
moves, is, " May I die, if I do not think it moves already." — Staunton. 

5 The idea seems to be, that the spectators have a sense of mobility in a 
vision of fixedness ; that is, they think it a statue, yet feel as if it were the 
living original; and seem to discern the power without the fact of motion. 
— I have never seen this play on the stage ; but can well believe the present 
scene to be, in the acting, one of the most impressive in the whole range of 
Shakespeare's theatre; as perhaps Hermione herself is, upon the whole, 
the grandest structure of womanhood ever conceived by the wit of man. 
And in this superb scene the reader almost fancies the spectators turning 
into marble, as they fancy the marble turning into flesh. 



1 63 the winter's TALE. ACT V. 

Leon, Do, Paulina; 

For/this affliction has a taste as sweet 
As any cordial comfort, j Still, methinks, 
There is an air comes from her : what fine chisel 
Could ever yet cut breath ? Let no man mock me, 
For I will kiss her. 

Paul, Good my lord, forbear : 

The ruddiness upon her lip is wet ; 
You'll mar it, if you kiss it ; stain your own 
With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain ? 

Leon, No, not these twenty years. 

Per, So long could I 

Stand by, a looker-on. 

Paul, Either forbear, 

Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you 6 
For more amazement. If you can behold it, 
I'll make the statue move indeed, descend 
And take you by the hand : but then you'll think, — 
Which I protest against, — I am assisted 
By wicked powers. 

Leon, What you can make her do, 

I am content to look on ; what to speak, 
I am content to hear ; for 'tis as easy 
To make her speak as move. 

Paul, It is required 

You do awake your faith. Then all stand still • 
Or those that think it is unlawful business 
I am about, 7 let them depart. 

6 Resolve you is make up your ??ii7id, or be fully prepared. So in Macbeth, 
iii. I : " Resolve yourselves apart : I'll come to you anon." 

7 Alluding to the old statutes against practising magic, which was re- 
garded as a conspiring with " wicked powers," and so was punished as a 
capital crime. See As You Like It, page 127, note 6. 



I 



SCENE III. THE WINTER'S TALE. 1 69 

Leon. Proceed : 

No foot shall stir. 

Paul. Music, awake her ; strike ! — [Music. 

Tis time ; descend ; be stone no more ; approach ; 
Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come ; 
I'll fill your grave up : stir ; nay, come away ; 
Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him 
Dear life redeems you. — You perceive she stirs : 

[Hermione comes down from the pedestal. 
Start not ; her actions shall be holy as 
You hear my spell is lawful : do not shun her, 
Until you see her die again ; for then 
You kill her double. Nay, present your hand : 
When she was young, you woo'd her ; now in age 
Is she become the suitor. 

Leon. O, she's warm I [Embracing her. 

If this be magic, let it be an art 
Lawful as eating. 

Polix. She embraces him. 

Cam. She hangs about his neck : 
If she pertain to life, let her speak too. 

Polix. Ay, and make't manifest where she has lived, 
Or how stol'n from the dead. 

Paul, That she is living, 

Were it but told you, should be hooted at 
Like an old tale : but it appears she lives, 
Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while. — 
Please you to interpose, fair madam \ kneel, 
And pray your mother's blessing. — Turn, good lady ; 
Our Perdita is found. 

[Presenting Perdita, who kneels to Hermione. 

Herm. You gods, look down, 



I70 THE WINTERS TALE. ACT i 

And from your sacred vials pour your graces 

Upon my daughter's head ! — Tell me, mine own, 

Where hast thou been preserved ? where lived ? how found 

Thy father's Court ? for thou shalt hear that I, — 

Knowing by Paulina that the oracle 

Gave hope thou wast in being, — have preserved 

Myself to see the issue. 

Paul. There's time enough for that ; 

Lest they desire, upon this push, to trouble 
Your joys with like relation. — Go together, 
You precious winners all ; your exultation 
Partake to every one. 8 I, an old turtle, 
Will wing me to some wither'd bough, and there 
My mate, that's never to be found again, 
Lament till I am lost. 

Leon. O, peace, Paulina ! 

Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent, 
As I by thine a wife : this is a match, 
And made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine ; 
But how, is to be question'd ; for I saw her, 
As I thought, dead ; and have, in vain, said many 
A prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far, — 
For him, I partly know his mind, — to find thee 
An honourable husband. — Come, Camillo, 
And take her by the hand ; whose 9 worth and honesty 
Is richly noted ; and here justified 
By us, a pair of kings. — Let's from this place. — 



8 A singular use of partake ; meaning, of course, impart, communicate, or 
extend the participation of. So in Pericles, i. 1 : " Our mind partakes her 
private actions to your secrecy." 

9 Whose refers, not to Paulina, but to Camillo ; as appears by what fol- 
lows. 



I 



SCENE ill. THE WINTERS TALE. 171 

What ! look upon my brother : both your pardons, 

That e'er I put between your holy looks 

My ill suspicion. — This is your son-in-law, 

And son unto the King, who — Heavens directing — 

Is troth-plight to your daughter. — Good Paulina, 

Lead us from hence ; where we may leisurely 

Each one demand, and answer to his part 

Perform'd in this wide gap of time, since first 

We were dissever'd ; hastily lead away. [Exeunt. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 



Act l, Scene i. 

Page 38. The Heavens continue their love ! — The original has 
Loves instead of love. The latter is shown to be right by the next 
speech : " I think there is not in the world either malice or matter to 
alter it." 

Act i., Scene 2. 

P. 40. Pm questioned by my fear of what may chance 

Or breed upon our absence : may there blow 

No sneaping winds at home, to make us say, 

This is put forth too truly ! — In the first of these lines, the 
original has/^2rj > instead of fear, and, in the second, that may instead 
of may there. The latter is Warburton's reading, as it is also that of 
Collier's second folio. I do not see how the last clause can be under- 
stood otherwise than as referring to fear ; so that either the antece- 
dent ought evidently to be in the singular, or else we ought to read 
These are instead of This is. The passage has troubled the editors a 
good deal, and various other changes have been made or proposed. 

P. 41. P II give you my commission, 

To let him there a month behind the gest, &c. — So Hanmer. 
The original has " I'll give him my commission." Mr. Joseph Crosby 
sustains the old reading, as in accordance with the usage of the North 
of England. His comment at least throws light on the question : " Of 
the two directly opposite meanings of the word let, viz., to detain or 
hinder, and to allow or permit, the latter is, I believe, the only mean- 
ing used in the North. '/'// let you do so and so,' is an every-day 
idiom for ' you have my permission to do so and so.' I have heard a 



1 74 THE WINTER S TALE. 

thousand times such expressions as these : ' I'll let my boy at school 
another year'; that is, ' I'll let him remain? &c. : ' John is making a 
good job, and I think I had better let hiin at it awhile longer.' In the 
present instance, ' I'll give him my commission, to let him there a 
month behind the gest,' &c, a Westmoreland Hermione would be in- 
stantly recognized as meaning to say, 'I'll give him [his Majesty my 
husband] my permit to stay or remain at your Court a month after the 
day named on the royal scroll for his departure.' " 

P. 41. I love thee not a jar 0' the clock behind 

What lady e'er her lord. — The old text reads " What lady she 
her lord." The word she seems very odd here; editors have naturally 
questioned it; and some read " What lady should her lord "; adopting 
a change written in the margin of Lord Ellesmere's copy of the first 
folio. The abbreviation of should might indeed be easily misprinted 
she ; but I think should misses the right sense. Not how any lady 
ought to love, but how any lady does love, her husband, seems to be the 
speaker's thought. See foot-note 7. 

P. 43. We knew not 

The doctrine of ill-doing, no, nor dreamed 
That any did. — So the second folio. The first lacks no. 

P. 43. God's grace to boot ! — So Walker. The original omits 
God's. See note on "God save his Majesty," The Tempest, page 157. 

P. 44. You may ride's 

With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs, ere 

With spur we heat an acre. — I at one time thought we ought 
to read, with Collier's second folio, " we clear an acre." But further 
consideration and the judicious help of Mr. Joseph Crosby have con- 
vinced me that the old text is right. See foot-note II. 

P. 45. From heartiness, from bounty's fertile bosom. — So Han- 
mer and Collier's second folio. The old text, " from Bountie, fertile 
Bo some.'' 1 

P. 47. Affection, thy intention stabs the centre ! 
Thou dost make possible, things not so held ; 
Communicatest with dreams, — hoio can this be ? — 



CRITICAL NOTES. 175 

With whafs unreal thou coactive art, 

And fellow 'st nothing: then Uis very credent 

Thou mayst cojoin with something ; and thou dost, 

And that beyond commission, (as I find it,) 

Ay, even to the infection of my brains 

And hardening of my brows. — It would be something strange 
if a transcriber or compositor or proof-reader found his way rightly 
through such a tangled puzzle, or rather bramble-bush, as we have 
here. Accordingly, the original has, in the seventh line, " and I find 
it," and, in the eighth, "And that to the infection." I have little doubt 
that, amidst so many ands, that word got repeated out of place in the 
seventh line, and that, in the eighth, And that crept in, for the same 
cause, from the line before. In other respects, I give the nine lines, 
verbatim, just as they stand in the original : the punctuation is there 
so disordered, that no one now thinks of adhering to it. 

The commentators differ widely in their interpretation of this hard 
passage. In fact, the passage has been a standing poser to editors 
from Rowe downwards : to Rowe it was so much so, that he boldly 
changed the first line to " Imagination, thou dost stab to centre." And 
some others understand affection as equivalent to imagination : but I 
more than doubt whether the word ever bears that sense in Shake- 
speare ; though he certainly uses it with considerable latitude, not to 
say looseness, of meaning. I reproduce what seem to me the two best 
explanations I have met with : 

" In this place, affection seems to be taken in its usual acceptation, 
and means the passion of love, which, from its possessing the powers 
which Leontes here describes, is often called in Shakespeare by the 
name of Fancy. Leontes addresses part of this speech to his son ; 
but his wife and Polixenes, who are supposed to be in sight, are the 
principal objects of his attention ; and, as he utters it in the utmost 
perturbation of mind, we are not to expect from him a connected dis- 
course, but a kind of rhapsody, interrupted by frequent breaks and 
starts of passion ; as thus : ' Sweet villain ! — Most dearest ! — My 
collop ! — Can thy dam ? — May it be ? ' In answer to this last ques- 
tion, may it be ? and to show the possibility of Hermione's falsehood, 
he begins to descant upon the power of love ; but has no sooner pro- 
nounced the word affection than, casting his eyes on Hermione, he says 
to her, rather of her, in a low voice, ' thy intention stabs the centre ! ' 



176 THE WINTER'S TALE. 

And if we suppose that in speaking these words the actor strikes his 
breast, it would be a further explanation of his meaning. After that, 
he proceeds again in his argument for a line and a half, when we have 
another break, How can this be ? He then proceeds with more 
connection, and says, * If love can be coactive with what is unreal, and 
have communication with non-entities, it is probable that it may cojoin 
with something real in the case of Hermione ' ; and, having proved it 
possible, he concludes that it certainly must be so. The words beyond 
commission allude to the commission he had given Hermione to pre- 
vail on Polixenes to defer his departure. This is the light in which 
this passage strikes me ; but I am by no means confident that my idea 
of it is just. — Intention in this passage means eagerness of attention, 
or of desire ; and is used in the same sense as in The Merry Wives 
of Windsor, where Falstaff says, ' She did course over my exteriors 
with such a greedy intention, that the appetite of her eye did seem to 
scorch me up like a burning-glass.' " — Mason. 

" Affection here means sympathy. Intention is intenseness. The 
centre is the solid globe conceived as the centre of the Universe. The 
allusion is to the powers ascribed to sympathy between the human sys- 
tem and all Nature, however remote or occult. Hence Leontes, like 
Othello, finds in his very agitation a proof that it corresponds not with 
a fancy but a reality. And that beyond commission, that is, it is very 
credent that sympathy shall betray a crime to the injured person, not 
only at the time of commission, but even after, — beyond the time of 
commission." — Singer. 

I should be not unwilling to accept this explanation, if I could see 
how to reconcile it with the latter part of the passage in question. 
Here I cannot but think that Leontes refers to something, not as act- 
ing in his own mind, and revealing to him what others have done in 
secret, but as acting in the person of his wife, and impelling her to 
crime, or causing her to do that which makes him " a horned monster." 
Nor can I understand the words beyond commission as having any 
reference to time. It seems to me that commission bears the same 
sense here as a little before, " I give you my commission to let him 
there a month," &c. ; that is, authority ox permission : beyond w T hat is 
allowed or warranted by the bond of wedlock. So that the meaning, 
as I take it, is, that this something, whatever it may be, which holds 
intercourse with dreams, and co-operates with things that are not, has 






CRITICAL NOTES. 1 77 

so infected Hermione, as to make her transcend the lawful freedom of 
a wife, or pass beyond the limits prescribed by her marriage-vows. 
See foot-notes 21 and 23. 

But perhaps the most indigestible part of my explanation lies in the 
meaning attached to centre. Yet I do not see how the word can well 
bear any other sense here than it does in the next scene, where, in 
accordance with the old astronomy, it clearly means the Earth : " If I 
mistake in those foundations which I build upon, the centre is not big 
enough to bear a schoolboy's top." So, again, in Troilus and Cres- 
sida, i. 3 : " The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, ob- 
serve degree, priority, and place," &c. Also in Hamlet, ii. 2 : "I will 
find where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed within the centre." 

Perhaps, after all, the passage in hand was not meant to be very 
intelligible ; and so it may be an apt instance of a man losing his wits 
in a rapture of jealousy. For how can a man be expected to discourse 
in orderly sort, when his mind is thus all in a spasm ? 

Since writing the above, I have received the following well-consid- 
ered note from Mr. Joseph Crosby : 

"The King, already by nature predisposed to jealousy, while talking 
to his boy, sees the purely -gracious courtesies of Hermione towards 
her guest ; and his abrupt interrogatories, ' Can thy dam ? — May't 
be ? ' show the course his thoughts are leading him. Here the hiatus 
after his fragmentary musings is easily supplied ; but his mind seeks 
some reconciling cause, — some motive-agent, — to account for the 
dreadful suspicion. He grasps it in the thought of that all-pervading 
carnal propensity which we name lust. The whole of the rest of the 
passage, commencing, ' Affection,' &c, is simply an apostrophe to the 
intencion of that cause. Affection may be defined as a term for any 
passion that violently affects the mind : and what more common or 
powerful passion is there than this of concupiscence or lust ? It 

* stabs the centre ' ; it pervades the whole globe ; kings and queens, 
no less than peasants, are its subjects: * 'tis powerful, think it, from 
east, west, north, and south ' : all barriers to its gratification it sweeps 
away, making possible, things not so held.' Nay, more ; its potency 
is such, that even in sleep we are not exempt from its tyranny : it 

* communicates with dreams,' though 'how this can be' is unaccount- 
able : but, if it can ' coact with the unreal,' and 'fellow nothing,' then, 
a fortiori, ' 'tis very credent it may cojoin with something,' — some 



I78 THE WINTER'S TALE. 

sympathetic touch, some living, responsive object. He has now found 
his clew to the situation, and suspicion fast becomes conviction. He 
has built a logical bridge of what he deems a sufficiently reasonable 
strength, and rushes over it to certainty. It may be, — it is, — 'Thou 
DOST ! ' — The soliloquy is admirably characteristic of the speaker's 
agitation of mind ; full of starts, abrupt turns, imperfectly-expressed 
sentences, incoherent ideas, one huddled upon another ; and this style 
marks all the speeches of Leontes in the early part of the play, and 
indeed all through it." 

P. 48. Polix. Ho, my lord ! 

What cheer ? how isU with you, best brother ? 

Herm. You look 

As if you held a brow of much distraction : 

Are you not moved, my lord? — In the first of these lines, the 
original reads "How ? my lord ? " Ho ! is there often spelt how, and 
the relative position of the persons shows it should be ho ! here ; for 
Leontes is evidently standing apart from Polixenes and Hermione. 
Corrected by Dyce. — In the second line, also, the words " What 
cheer ? how is't with you, best brother ? " are assigned to Leontes in 
the old text. Corrected by Hanmer. — In the last line, the original 
lacks not, which is fairly required both for sense and for metre. Han- 
mer reads as in the text ; Theobald, " Are not you moved ? " 

P. 48. Looking on the lines 

Of my bofs face, methought / did recoil 

Twenty-three years. — In the original, " me thoughts I did re- 
coil." This has been changed by some to " my thoughts I did recoil "; 
which, I suspect, is hardly English. In the fifth line after, the original 
has me thought ; and in Richard III., i. 4, the first folio has "Me 
thoughts that I had broken from the Tower"; and also, "Me thoughts 
I saw a thousand fearfull wrackes," &c. 

P. 49. He makes a yulfs day short as December's. — The old 
text reads " short as December? This, it seems to me, is hardly an 
English expression of the thought. 

P. 50. / a??i like you, they say. — So the second folio. The first 
omits they. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 79 

P. 53. For cogitation 

Resides not in that man that does not think't. — The original 
has "that does not thinke," and some copies of the second folio, 
" think it." 

P. 53. My wife's a hobby-horse. — In the original, " a Holy Horse." 
Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 53. Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes else 

Blind with the pin-and-web. — So Walker. The original lacks 
else, and so leaves the verse maimed. 

P. 54. Why, he that wears her like a medal hanging 

About his neck. — So Collier's second folio. The original has 
" like her Medull," her being repeated by mistake. 

P. 55. How I am galVd, — thou mightst bespice a cup. — So the 
second folio. The first omits thou, which is needful alike to sense and 
verse. 

P. 57. So leaves me to consider. What is breeding, 
That changes thus his manners ? 
Cam. / dare not know, my lord. — The original prints 
" leaves me, to consider what is breeding," &c. And so most of the 
recent editors give the passage. But does not Camillo's reply fairly 
suppose the clause after consider to be interrogative ? And where is 
the objection to taking consider as used absolutely, or without an object 
expressed ? 

P. 59. As he had seerft, or been an instrument 

To vice you to't. — Instead of vice, it has been proposed to 
print 'tice, meaning entice, which, it seems to me, is something too tame 
for the occasion. Dyce, however, adopts that reading. See foot- 
note 56. 

P. 60. Swear this thought over 

By each particular star in heaven. — The original reads 
"Swear his thought over." Various changes have been proposed; 
but the substitution of this for his is much the simplest ; and I fail to 



l80 THE WINTER'S TALE. 

appreciate the objections to it. Lettsom proposes " Swear this oath 
over " ; which would give the same sense, with, I think, not much im- 
provement in the language. 

P. 61. My people did expect my hence-departure 
Two days ago. This jealousy of his 

Is for a precious creature. — So Walker. The original lacks 
of his. The words thus added complete the verse naturally ; and we 
have many such omissions in the old copies : some occurring in the 
folio are corrected from the quartos, in the case of plays that were 
printed in that form, and vice versa. 

P. 61. Good expedition be my friend, and nothing 

The gracious Queen, part of his thetne, discomfort 
Of his ill-tden suspicion. — Most of the later editors have, per- 
haps justly, given this passage up as incurably corrupt. Instead of noth- 
ing, in the first line, the original has conifort ; and but nothing instead of 
discomfort in the second line. With that reading, it may, I think, be 
safely said that neither sense nor English can possibly be made out of 
the passage. Hanmer prints " Good expedition be my friend ! Heaven 
comfort," &c; and Collier's second folio substitutes dream for theme ; 
neither of which changes yields any relief. Many explanations also 
of the old text have been offered ; but all to no purpose except that of 
proving it to be inexplicable. It is true, as Walker notes, that in one 
or two places the Poet uses nothing of simply as a strong negative, 
equivalent to not at all ; but neither does that fact help the present 
difficulty. I have ventured to try a reading not hitherto proposed, so 
far as I am aware. This reading, it will be seen, makes no literal 
change except that of but into dis ; while it supposes comfort and 
nothing to have crept each into the other's place ; perhaps by mistake, 
perhaps by sophistication. The text as here given, I think, both yields 
a fitting sense, and is tolerable English ; though, I confess, at the 
expense of one rather harsh inversion ; yet not harsher, I believe, 
than some others in Shakespeare. See foot-note 59. 

Act 11., Scene i. 

P. 64. Alls true that I mistrusted. — Lettsom's correction. The 
old text reads " that is mistrusted." 



CRITICAL NOTES. l8l 

P. 65. More, she's a traitor, and Camillo is 

A fedary with her. — The original has Federarie, which is 
probably a misprint for Fedarie. At all events, it labours under the 
twofold difficulty of overfilling the verse and of not being English. 
The Poet has fedary in two other places. 

P. 66. No, no ; if I mistake 

In those foundations which I build upon, &c. — The second no 
is wanting in the old text. Lettsom's correction. 

P. 67. Fll keep my stable where 

I lodge my wife / Pll go in couples with her, &c. — The original 
has stables instead of stable. But Dr. C. M. Ingleby, in his Shakespeare 
Hermeneutics, shows that keeping one's stable was a sort of proverbial 
phrase, having a peculiar meaning ; and it appears from his quotations 
that the singular was always used for conveying that sense. Thus he 
quotes from Greene's Ja?nes the Fourth : " A young stripling, that can 
wait in a gentlewoman's chamber when his master is a mile off, keep 
his stable when it is empty, and his purse when it is full." Here there 
is an equivoque on stable, one sense being the same as that in the 
text, the other that of a lodging for horses. See foot-note 14. 

P. 68. Would I knew the villain, 

I would lant-dam him. — The original has " I would Land- 
damne him." No other instance of land-damn has been found, nor can 
anybody tell what it means. Collier's second folio substitutes la?7tback, 
which means beat, — a sense not strong enough for the place. Lant- 
damm, as the word would have been written, might easily be misprinted 
land-damne. Walker proposed live-damn, with the explanation, " I 
would damn him alive, — inflict the torments of Hell upon him while 
yet living." I was at one time minded to adopt this reading, and 
should probably have done so, had I not received the following from 
Mr. Joseph Crosby : " I have long been convinced that Hanmer's ex- 
planation of land-damn, in The Winter's Tale, ii. I, was right. J ant 
is a common Lancashire provincialism for urine, to this day. All the 
glossaries and dictionaries, new and old, give this word as pure Saxon, 
although they mostly mark it obsolete. Coles gives " Lant, urina"; 
and both Coles and Skinner define ' to lant, urina miscere.' I have 



1 82 THE WINTER'S TALE. 

myself seen, among the farmers, what they call a ' lant-trough ' ; a 
large stone trough, into which they empty the contents of the ' cham- 
bers ' ; as they use it to sprinkle, along with quick lime, over certain 
grain-seeds, before they sow them, to make them sprout the sooner, I 
suppose. It was also written land and hland. The word in question, 
then, if spelt land-damm, clearly means 'stop the urine,' dam or shut 
it off; which unquestionably in this case was to be done by mutilation. 
Antigonus, all through this passage, speaks in the most passionate 
manner ; and it requires some such sense as this to be attached to the 
climax land-damm, to keep up his consistency." Then, after quoting 
the many changes of the text which have been proposed, the writer 
closes thus : " The whole context of unclean metaphors plainly re- 
quires land-dam, or, still better, lant-dam, {lant being the form of 
more common usage,) meaning to stop his water, and of course his 
life, by the horrible punishment of mutilation." 

P. 69. But I do seeH and feel' t, 

As you feel doing this, and see withal 

The instruments that you feel. — The old text has thus instead 
of this in the second of these lines, and omits you in the third. Lett- 
som proposed this, and you is clearly needful to the sense. Heath 
thought we ought to read "The instruments of that you feel." 

P. 70. Which if you — or stupefied, 

Or seeming so in skill — cannot or will not 
Relish as truth, like us, &c. — The original has " Relish a 
truth." But is it, or was it ever, English to say " which if you cannot 
relish a truth"? The reading in the text is Rowe's. 

P. 70. Whose spiritual counsel had, 

Shall stop or spur me on. Have I done well? — So Hanmer. 
The old text lacks on. 

Act 11., Scene 3. 

P. 77. And, I beseech you, hear me, who profess 
Myself your loyal servant, your physician, 
Your most obedient counsellor ; yet that dare 
Less appear so, &c. — Instead of profess and dare, the old text 
has professes and dares. Corrected by Rowe. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 83 

P. 79. Nay, the valleys, 

The pretty dimples ofs chin and cheek ; &c. — The original has 
Valley instead of valleys. Corrected by Hanmer. 

P. 81. The bastard's brains with these my proper hands 

Will I dash out. — The old text has bastard-brains. Lettsom 
proposed the change. 

P. 81. We^ve always truly served you ; and beseech you 

So to esteem of us. — The original lacks the second you. 

Act hi., Scene 2. 

P. 85. This session — to our great grief, we pronounce — 

Even pushes 'gainst our heart. — In the original, " This Ses- 
sions." In the last speech of the preceding Act, we have " Summon a 
session" 

P. 85. Crier. Silence! — In the original "Silence" is printed in 
Italic type, and without the prefix, as if it were a stage-direction. But 
it was customary to command silence in such cases, and it belonged to 
the public Crier to pronounce the order. 

P. 87. With what encounter so micurrent I 

Have strain'd f appear thus. — Collier's second folio substi- 
tutes stray* d for strain? d. The words, "if one jot beyond the bound 
of honour," certainly speak somewhat in favour of this change. But 
Shakespeare repeatedly uses the substantive strain in a way that 
strongly supports the old text. See foot-note 5. 

P. 88. Leon. You will not own it. 

Herm. More than mistress of 

Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not 
At all acknozvledge. — Here " More than mistress of" seems 
to me a very strange expression. I greatly suspect we ought to read 
"More than my distress, Which," &C.J and so I believe some one has 
proposed to read. 



1 84 the winter's tale. 

P. 89. As you were past all sha??ie, — 

Those of your fact are so, — so past all truth. — Some difficulty 
has been felt about fact here. Farmer proposed to substitute sect, and 
so Walker would read. But I do not well understand the grounds of 
their objection to fact. The word seems to me legitimate and apt 
enough. "Those of your fact" means, of course, those guilty of your 
deed, or of such deeds as yours. This use of the word has long been 
familiar to me. 

P. 89. Thy brat hath been cast out, left to itself, 

No father owning it. — The old text has like instead of left. 
But what can be the meaning of " like to itself " here ? I can make 
nothing of it ; whereas " left to itself " expresses the actual fact rightly. 
The correction is Keightley's. 

P. 89. The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth. — Here, in- 
stead of its, the original has it used possessively. So, again, near the 
close of the preceding Act : " And that there thou leave it to it own 
protection." The same thing occurs sometimes in other plays ; as in 
Hamlet, i. 2: "It lifted up it head." Also in King Lear, i. 4: "The 
hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, that it had it head bit off by it 
young." This is perhaps a mark -worthy relic of old usage in regard to 
that word. I have more than once observed in foot-notes, that in 
Shakespeare's time its was not an accepted word, and that his or her 
was commonly used instead. The original edition of the English 
Bible does not use its at all ; though in a few places we find it used 
possessively, which is changed to its in modern editions, and rightly, no 
doubt. It is true that its occurs several times in the original text of 
this play, for the word was then creeping into use ; but the instances 
quoted above of it used possessively look as if the Poet had some 
scruples about using its. White and Staunton stick to the old printing 
in this point ; which, it seems to me, is pushing conservatism one let- 
ter too far. 

P. 90. But yet hear this ; mistake me not : My life, 

I prize it not a straw. — Instead of " My life," the old text has 
" no Life." The passage is sometimes printed " No ! life, I prize it 
not," &c. Dyce prints "for life," &c. The reading in the text is 
White's. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 85 

P. 92. Quit his fortunes here 

Which you knew great ; and to the certain hazard 
Of all incertainties himself commended. — So the second folio. 
The first omits certain. See foot-note 13. 

P. 93. What wheels, racks, fires ? what flaying, or what boiling 

In lead or oil? — The original has "what flaying? boy ling? 
In Leads, or Oyles?" To complete the measure in the first line, the 
second folio added burning, and Capell printed " what flaying, rather ? " 
Walker proposes " what flaying, tearing, boiling," &c. But the inser- 
tion of or what is the simplest remedy ; and so Dyce gives it. " In 
lead ox oil" is Walker's correction. 

P. 95. Do not revive affliction : 

At my petition, I beseech you, rather 

Let me be punish *d, &c. — This passage has raised a deal of 
controversy. In the original it stands thus : " Do not receive affliction 
At my petition; I beseech you, rather," &c. For "At my petition" 
Collier's second folio substitutes " At repetition" and Lettsom pro- 
poses By repetition. But it seems to me that the simplest way out of 
the difficulty is by slightly changing the punctuation. The change of 
receive into revive is Staunton's ; and it seems to me unquestionably 
right. See foot-note 18. 

P. 95. Unto these sorrows. — So Walker. The original has " To 
these sorrows." 

Act hi., Scene 3. 

P. 96. I never saw a vessel of like sorrozv, 

So filVd and so o'er-running. — So Collier's second folio. The 
original has " So fill'd, and so becomming." White explains becoming 
as meaning decent; Staunton, self restrained ; Singer, dignified. White 
denounces o'er-running as "ridiculous," Staunton as "ludicrous"; 
whereupon Lettsom comments as follows : " According to Johnson, to 
over-run is to be i?iore than full. Surely 'a vessel filled and over- 
running' is a rather better expression than 'a vessel filled and digni- 
fied,' or *a vessel filled and self-restrained.' Or, if we suppose that 
here, as elsewhere, Shakespeare has intermingled the comparison and 



1 86 THE WINTERS TALE. 

the thing compared, and that filled relates to vessel, and becoming to 
Hermione, how can this adjective be applied to a person? A becom- 
ing bonnet, colour, or attitude, I can understand ; but what can be 
said of a becoming you?ig lady, or a beco?ning queen ? 

P. 97. There wend and leave it crying. — So Collier's second folio 
The original has weepe instead of wend. 

P. 98. / would there were no age between sixteen and three-and- 
twenty. — Instead of sixteen, the old text has ten, which surely cannot 
be right. Hanmer substituted thirteen; the Cambridge Editors sug- 
gest sixteen, on the ground that 16 would be mistaken for 10, more 
easily than 13. 

P. 98. Mercy oris, a barn; a very pretty bam! A god, or a 
child, I wonder ? — The original reads "A boy, or a Childe I wonder?" 
The change was suggested to White by the corresponding passage in 
Greene's novel. It seems to me a very happy correction. See foot- 
note 7. The old reading has caused much perplexity to editors ; and 
the best that has been alleged in its support is, that in some counties 
child appears to have been used especially for female infant : but this 
needs more confirmation than is yet forthcoming. 

P. 99. Sometimes to see 'em y and then not to see V;«. — So Capell. 
The old text lacks then, which is plainly needful to the sense. 

P. 100. Would I had been by, to have helped the nobleman. — So 
Theobald. The original has " the old man" The Shepherd could 
not know that Antigonus was an old man ; but the Clown has just 
told him " how he cried out to me for help, and said his name was 
Antigonus, a nobleman." 

P. 100. You 1 re a made old man. — The original has mad. 

Act iv., Chorus. 

P. 101. The authorship of this Chorus is, to say the least, exceed- 
ingly doubtful. Mr. White "more than suspects" it to have been 
written by Chapman. Certainly, if Shakespeare wrote it, his hand 
must have lapsed from or forgot its cunning for the time. The texture 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 87 

and movement of the verse are very different from what a ripe Shakes- 
pearian tastes in the rest of the play. As compared with the Choruses 
in King Henry V., the workmanship is at once clumsy, languid, and 
obscure. Shakespeare indeed is often obscure ; but his obscurity 
almost always results from compression of thought, not from clumsi- 
ness of tongue or brain. 

P. 102. /witness'd to 

The times that brought them in. — So Capell. The old text 
has witness instead of witness' d. 

P. 102. And remember well 

A mentioned son d* the King's, which Florizel 

I now name to you. — The original reads "/mentioned a 
sonne," &c; where verse and statement are alike at fault; for so we 
have Time, honest old chorus as he is, telling a wrong story. It is 
true, mention has been made of a son of Polixenes ; but the Chorus 
did not make it, nor has he, till now, said a word to us on any subject. 
Instead of / mentioned, Hanmer reads There is ; which infers an im- 
probable misprint. Most likely / got repeated by mistake from the 
next line, and then a was interpolated, in order to make apparent 
sense. 

Act iv., Scene i. 

P. 103. It is sixteen years since I sazv my country. — The original 
here says " jifteene" but it has sixteen both in the Chorus and in the 
last scene of the play. 

P. 104. But I have musingly noted. — So Hanmer and Collier's 
second folio. The original has missingly, which can hardly be ex- 
plained to any fitting sense. See foot-note 2. 

P. 104. That's likewise part of my intelligence ; and I fear the angle 
that plucks our son thither. — So Theobald. The old text has but in- 
stead of and. The former requires a very strained explanation, to 
make it lit the place. 



1 88 the winter's tale. 

Act iv., Scene 2. 

P. 105. With, hey! with, hey! the thrush and the jay. — So the 
second folio. The second with, hey ! is wanting in the first. 

P. no. Let me be unroll'd, and my name put in the book of virtue. — 
Lettsom believes unroWd to be " a mere blunder of the ear for un- 
rogued." And he observes that " unrolTd, without any thing to deter- 
mine its application, cannot well stand alone." I suspect he is right. 

Act iv., Scene 3. 

P. in. I should blush 

To see you so attired; more, / think, 

To see myself i' the glass. — The old text reads " sworne I 
thinke, To shew my selfe a glasse." Here szuorn must be taken as 
agreeing with you, and so may possibly be made to yield a fitting 
sense, but hardly. Hanmer changed sworn to swoon, and is followed 
by Singer, Staunton, and Dyce : nevertheless I cannot abide that read- 
ing : Perdita could never speak so. Nor can I get the meaning, " to 
see myself in a glass," out of the words, " to show myself a glass." 
The change of sworn to more was proposed by Dr. C. M. Ingleby and 
by Mr. Samuel Bailey. Theobald made the other changes. The read- 
ing here printed is something bold indeed, but gives a sense so charm- 
ingly apt, that I cannot choose but adopt it. 

P. 113. Welcome, sir: 

It is my fathers will I should take on me, &c. — So Capell. 
The original reads " Sir, welcome," which leaves the verse defective. 
Hanmer printed " Sir, you're welcome." This accomplishes the same 
object, but not, I think, so well. 

P. 115. So, even that art 

Which you say adds to Nature is an art 

That Nature makes. — The original reads " so over that Art," 
which is commonly printed " so, o'er that art." With o'er, I cannot 
make the expression tally with the context. The reading in the text is 
Craik's. Capell reads e^er. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 89 

P. 116. O Proserpina, 

For th 1 flowers now, that, frighted, thou letfst fall 
Fro?n Dis's wagon ! golden daffodils, &c. — Golden is wanting 
in the original ; which leaves both verse and sense defective. Cole- 
ridge remarks upon the passage, " An epithet is wanted here, not merely 
or chiefly for the metre, but for the balance, for the aesthetic logic. 
Perhaps golden was the word which would set off the violets dim" 
What with Coleridge's authority, and Walker's approval, and the evi- 
dent fitness of the thing, I venture to supply the word. 

P. 118. Nothing but that ; move still, still so, and own 

No other function. Each your doing is 

So singular in each particular, 

Crowning what you have done i' the present deed, 

That all your acts are queens. — The original gives these five 
lines thus : 

Nothing but that : move still, still so : 

And owne no other Function. Each your doing, 

(So singular, in each particular) 

Crownes what you are doi7ig, in the present deeds, 

That all your Actes, are Queenes. 

" Here," says Walker, " I think, a line, or possibly two have dropt out, 
which, if preserved, would have obviated the difficulty of construction, 
which forms the only blot on this most exquisite speech." I can 
hardly assent to this as regards the amount lost ; but there is evidently 
some bad corruption in the passage, both sense and verse being out of 
joint: and I have no doubt that a word or two got lost from the text, 
and one or two other words changed. Instead of "what yo\x* are 
doing, 11 the sense clearly requires " what you have done. 11 In this 
point, my conjecture is, that doing got repeated from the second line 
before, and then you have was altered to you are, so as to accord with 
doing; thus rendering the clause incoherent with the context. With 
the changes I have ventured to make, both sense and verse seem 
brought into proper order. The old text is, to my sense, convicted of 
error by certain comments it has called forth ; not explanations at all, 
but sheer obfuscations, and hyperbolical absurdities. " Each your 
doing crowns what you are doing, in the present deeds," is neither 
English nor sense, and no glozing can make it so. And the comments 



190 THE WINTER S TALE. 

aforesaid amount to just this, that the passage means something which, 
if the writers could only tell what it means, would be seen to be super- 
latively fine. 

P. 118. And the true blood which peeps so fairly through V. — So 
Capell, Walker, and Collier's second folio. The original lacks so. 

P. 118. Nothing she does or seems 

But smacks of something greater than herself — Instead of 
seems, Collier's second folio has says, which is adopted by White ; 
perhaps rightly. 

P. 118. He tells her something 

That makes her blood look out. — So Theobald. The old text 
has " look on't. v The misprint ^f otz't for out occurs repeatedly. See 
note on " laid mine honour too unchary out," in Twelfth Night, p. 148. 

P. 119. Pray you, good shepherd, what fair swain is this 

Which dances with your daughter ? — So Walker. The orig- 
inal lacks you. Hanmer printed " / pray." 

P. 119. I but have it 

Upon his own report, and I believe it. — The original reads 
" but I have it," which quite untunes the sense of the passage. Cor- 
rected by Walker. 

P. 120. And break a foul jape into the matter. — The original has 
gap instead of jape, which is from Collier's second folio. See foot- 
note 26. 

P. 120. Has he any embroided wares. — So Collier's second folio. 
The original has " unbraided Wares." This has been explained " not 
braided, not knitted," and "undamaged, genuine"; but neither of 
these senses answers the occasion very well, or has much affinity with 
the context. 

P. 122. Clammer your tongues, and not a word more. — So Crosby. 
The original has " clamor your tongues." The common reading is 
clamour, and various attempts have been made to connect it with the 



CRITICAL NOTES. I9I 

ringing of bells. Dyce, though he prints clamour, thinks that " the 
attempts to explain this by referring it to bell-ringing ought to have 
ceased long ago." We have an instance of the word so applied in 
Much Ado, v. 2 : 

Bene. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no 
longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps. 
Beat. And how long is that, think you ? 
Bene. Question: — why, an hour in clamour, and a quarter in rheum. 

But here the word is evidently used in a sense just the opposite of that 
required in the text. Clamor may there be an instance of phono- 
graphic spelling ; or the two words, though quite distinct in origin and 
meaning, may have been sometimes spelt alike. Mr. Crosby writes 
me that " clammer in The Winters Tale is the Clown's way of pro- 
nouncing clam ; and in Westmoreland, England, the word is mainly 
pronounced clammer. Were I editing the play, I should assuredly 
print it clammer ; and every Northern man would instantly know it 
meant stop ; literally stick, fasten up, or together." In confirmation of 
what is quoted from Mr. Crosby in foot-note 36, it may be well to add 
the following from Richardson ; " Clam, or Clem, to hold tight ; 
Anglo-Saxon, Clam, a band. Clamnid, in Gloucestershire, Mr. Grose 
says, means to be choked up, as the mill is clamni'd up ; and in the 
North, starved. Ray : 'Clenid or clam'd, starved ; because, by famine, 
the bowels are, as it were, clammed or stuck together. Sometimes it 
signifies thirsty; and we know in thirst the mouth is very often 
clammy? " 

P. 125. Master, there is three goat-herds, three shepherds, three neat- 
herds, three swine-herds, &c. — So Theobald and Walker. The origi- 
nal has carters instead of goat-herds. In the second speech after, 
Polixenes says, " pray, let's see these four threes of herdsmen. 

P. 127. Sooth, when I was young, 

And handled love as you do, &c. — So Collier's second folio. 
The old text has " And handed love." 

P. 127. You were straited 

For a reply, at least if you make care 

Of happy holding Jut. — The original has " make a care.' 1 
The interpolated a is among the commonest errors. 



192 THE WINTER S TALE. 

P. 127. As soft as dove's down, and as white as it, 

Or Ethiop's tooth. — The original has " Ethyopians tooth." 
Corrected by Dyce. 

P. 130. If I may ever know thou dost but sigh 

That thou no 7nore shalt see this knack, — as never 
I mean thou shalt, &c. — The old text repeats never by antici- 
pation, — " no more shalt never see." 

P. 131. Hides not his visage from our cottage, but 

Looks on's alike. — In the original, "Looks on alike." Of 
course on's is a contraction of on us. 

P. 132. You know your father's temper. — In the original, "my 
Fathers temper." An obvious error, corrected in the second folio. 

P. 133. For all the Sun sees, or 

The close earth wombs, or the profound sea hides. — The origi- 
nal has " profound seas hides." CapelPs correction. 

P. 133. And, most oppdrtune to our need. — In the old text, "to 
her need." Corrected by Theobald. 

P. 134. I am so fraught with serious business, that 

I leave out ceremony. — So Collier's second folio. The old 
text has curious instead of serious. 

P. 135. Asks thee, the son, forgiveness. — In the original, " asks thee 
there Sonne." 

P. 135. Sent by the King your father 

To greet him, and to give him comfort. — The old text has 
cojnforts. Corrected anonymously. 

P. 136. She is as forward of her breeding as 

P the rear our birth. — The original has She's instead of She 
is at the beginning of the first line, and also begins the second with 
She is. Hanmer struck out the latter, as overfilling the verse to no 
purpose ; and Lettsom thinks the second She is to be " a mere double 



CRITICAL NOTES. I93 

of the first, as Hanmer saw, if indeed it is not a correction out of 
place." He means, that it was probably intended as a correction of 
She's in the first line. 

P. 137. We are not furnished like Bohemia's son, 

Nor shall appear so in Sicilia. — So Lettsom. The original 
lacks so. Staunton also proposed the insertion of so. 

P. 137. // shall be so my care 

To have you royally appointed, as if 

The scene you play'd were mine. — The original has " as if The 
scene you. play " The reading in the text is Lettsom's. 

P. 138. They throng'd who should buy first, as if my trinkets had 
been hallowed . — The original has " they throng." An obvious error, 
hardly worth noting. 

P. 138. I would have filed keys off that hung in chains. — The origi- 
nal reads " would have fill V Keyes of." 

P. 140. For I do fear eyes over us. — The original lacks us, which is 
required both for sense and for metre. 

P. 141. If I thought it were not a piece of honesty to acquaint the 
King withal, I would doU. — The original transposes the not into the 
last clause, — "I would not do't." Corrected by Hanmer. 

P. 141. And then your blood had been dearer by I know not how 
much an ounce. — Here not is wanting in the old text. Inserted by 
Hanmer. 

P. 145. There stand till he be three quarters and a dram dead. — 
So Capell. The old text has " then stand." 

P. 146. Which who knows but luck may turn to my advancement . J 
— The old text reads " which who knows how that may turn 6ach" 

&c; which is neither English nor sense. Collier's second folio changes 
back to luck. The reading in the text is Lettsom's. 



194 THE WINTER S TALE. 



Act v., Scene i. 

P. 147. True, too true, my lord. — The original misprints the first 
true at the close of the preceding speech. Corrected by Theobald. 

S 
P. 147. I think so. KiWd! 

Kill'd ! — she I kilVd ! I did so : but thou strikest me 

Sorely, to say I did. — So Theobald and Walker. The second 

KilVd ! is wanting in the old text. 

P. 147. You might have spoke a thousand things. — The original has 
spoken. Not worth noting, perhaps. 

P. 149. Thou good Paulina, 

Who hast the memory of Hermione, &c. — So Capell. The 
original lacks Thou. 

P. 149. No more such wives ; therefore, no wife : one worse, 
And better used, would make her sainted spirit 
Again possess her corpse, and on this stage — 
Where we offend her now — appear, soul-vex^d, 
And begin, Why to me? — So Theobald. In the old text the 
fourth line stands thus : " (Where we offendors now appear) Soul- 
vext." Theobald makes the following just note : " 'Tis obvious that 
the grammar is defective, and the sense consequently wants supporting. 
The slight change I have made cures both ; and surely 'tis an im- 
provement to the sentiment for the King to say, that Paulina and he 
offended his dead wife's ghost with the subject of a second match, 
rather than in general terms to call themselves offenders, sinners." 

P. 149. Had she such power, 

She had just cause. — The original repeats such in the last 
clause, — " She had just such cause." Palpably wrong. 

P. 150. Cleo. Good madam, — 

Paul. I have done. 

Yet, if my lord will i7iarry t — if you will, sir, — 



CRITICAL NOTES. I95 

No remedy, but you will, — give me the office 

To choose your Queen. — The original prints " I have done " as 
part of the preceding speech. Corrected by Capell. In the last line, 
the original has " chuse you a Queene." Corrected by Walker. 

P. 151. So must thy grave 

Give way to what is seen now. — Instead of grave, Hanmer has 
graces, and Lord Ellesmere's folio grace ; rightly, perhaps, though, I 
think, rather tamely. See foot-note 5. 

P. 151. This is such a creature. — So Hanmer. The original lacks 
such. 

P. 152. Pr^ythee, no more ; thou know'st 

Tie dies to me again when talked of. — So Hanmer. The old 
text has " Prethee no more ; cease : thou know'st," &c. Lettsom 
thinks that " Pr'ythee, no more," and " I pr'ythee, cease," are both 
genuine readings, the one being a correction of the other, and the two 
having got jumbled in the printing or the transcribing. 



Act v., Scene 2. 

P. 160. That she might no more be in danger of losing her. — So 
Collier's second folio. The old text omits her. 



Act v., Scene 3. 

P. 166. Scarce any joy 

Did ever so long live ; no sorrow but 

It kilTd itself much sooner. — So Walker. The original has 
but at the beginning of the last line, and lacks //. Capell completed 
the verse by printing sir instead of transferring but. 

P. 167. The fixure of her eye has viotion Ui't, 

And we are viock\l with art. — So Capell. The original lias 
"As we are mock'd with art." Rowe prints "As we were mock'd with 
art." 



I96 THE WINTER'S TALE. 

P. 168. Then all stand still ; 

Or those that think it is unlawful business, &c. — The original 
has On instead of Or. Corrected by Hanmer. 

P. 171. This is your son-in-law, 

And son unto the King, who — Heavens directing — 
Is troth-plight to your daughter. — In the original the is after 
this is wanting ; but the sense plainly requires it, either expressed or 
understood. Nor is there any real objection to it on the score of 
metre, since it only makes the fourth foot in line an Anapest instead 
of. an Iamb ; which is among the commonest variations in the Poet's 
verse. — In the next line, also, the old text has whom instead of who ; 
thus making it the object of directing, and not the subject of is troth- 
plight, as the sense requires. 



GINN 6- HEATH'S PUBLICATIONS. 



Shakespeare's Art, discussing under this head, Nature and 
Use of Art, Principles of Art, Dramatic Composition, 
Characterization, Humour, Style, Moral Spirit. 

Shakespeare's Characters, containing critical discourses on 
twenty-five of the Plays. 



Edwin P. Whipple, Boston : The 
name of Henry N. Hudson is perma- 
nently connected with the most thought- 
ful and intelligent interpretative criti- 
cism which has, during the present 
century, been written, either in English 
or German, on the man whom the cold 
and cautious Hallam called " the great- 
est name in all literature." Mr. Hud- 
son has devoted twenty or thirty years 
to the task. The ripest result of his 
long labors is contained in two vol- 
umes, entitled " Shakespeare's Life, 
Art, and Characters." Mr. Hudson 
has none of the pedantry of many stu- 
dents of Shakespearian lore, while he 
is brimful of its substance and spirit. 
He writes boldly and independently, 
but he is not self-opinionated. He is 
reverential as well as intrepid. He is 
never dull; but he does not escape 
dulness through pertness or shallow- 
ness. His great object is to educate 
people into a solid knowledge of 
Shakespeare as well as to quicken 
their love for him ; and in this educa- 
tional purpose he aims to delight the 
readers he instructs. 

It is in the analysis of Shakespeare's 
characters that Mr. Hudson puts forth 



all his force and subtlety of thought. 
They have been so long his mental 
companions, acquaintances, or friends, 
that he almost forgets the fact that they 
are not actual beings, however much 
they may be " real " beings. He shows 
that Shakespeare's characters have so 
taken real existence in his mind, that 
he unconsciously speaks of them as one 
speaks of persons he daily meets. This 
is the charm of his criticisms. Even 
when his analysis breaks up the char- 
acters into their elements, and shows 
that they are not so much individual 
specimens of human nature as vividly 
individualized classes of human nature, 
he still never loses sight of their per- 
sonality. 

His analysis of the great characters 
of Shakespeare, whether serious or 
comic, is so keen and true, that it can- 
not but give new and fresh ideas to the 
most diligent student of the Poet. In 
his expositions of the female characters 
of Shakespeare he is uniformly excel- 
lent. The ideal beauty of these types 
of womanhood has never had a more 
genial and delicate interpreter. The 
minor characters also have full justice 
done them. 



Hudson's School Shakespeare. 

Selected and prepared for use in Schools, Clubs, Classes, and Families. 
With Introductions and Notes. Three vols. i2mo. Cloth. 636-678 
pages. Mailing price, $1.70 ; Introduction, $1.20. 

The Plays, in all cases, are given entire, save the bare omission 
of such lines and expressions as the Editor has always deemed it 
necessary to omit in class. The omissions, he believes, do not in 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



any case reach so far as to impair in the least either the delineation 
of character or the dramatic action. On the other hand, he has not 
meant to retain any matter not fairly pronounceable in any class, 
however composed. 

The Editor uses the plan of foot-notes instead of massing the 
annotation all together at the end of the play. This is because 
ample experience has assured him, beyond all peradventure, that 
whatever of explanation young students need of Shakespeare's text 
— and they certainly need a good deal — is much better every way 
when placed directly under the eye, so that they can hardly miss it ; 
and because at least nineteen in twenty of such pupils will pass over 
an obscure word or phrase without understanding it, rather than stay 
to look up the explanation in another part of the volume. 

In the amount of annotation, the Editor has been mainly guided 
by the results of his own experience in teaching ; aiming to give so 
many and such notes as he has found needful or conducive to a full 
and clear understanding of the Poet's thought. Besides the need 
of economizing space, he has wished to avoid distracting or diverting 
the student's attention overmuch from the special object-matter of 
the Poet's scenes. 

The First Series contains — 

As You Like It. The Two Parts of Henry IV. 

The Merchant of Venice. Julius Caesar. 

Twelfth Night. Hamlet. 

The Second Series contains — 

The Tempest. King Richard the Third. 

The Winter's Tale. King Lear. 

King Henry the Fifth. Macbeth. 

Antony and Cleopatra. 

The Third Series contains — 

A Midsummer-Night's Dream. Romeo and Juliet. 

Much Ado About Nothing. Cymbeline. 

King Henry VIII. Othello. Coriolanus. 

Hudson's Revised and Enlarged Editions of the 

Shakespeare Plays for School and Family Use. Expurgated text. 
Sq. i6mo. Cloth. Mailing price of each, 65 cts. ; Introduction, 
45 cfe- 



GINN & HEATH'S PUBLICATIONS. 



Omik's English of Shakespeare. 



Illustrated in a Philological Commentary on his Julius Caesar. By 
George L. Craik, Queen's College, Belfast. Edited by W. J. Rolfe, 
Cambridge. i6mo. Cloth. 386 pages. Mailing price, $1.10 ; Intro- 
duction, 75 cts. 

In this volume, Mr. Craik gives an exposition in regard both to 
the language or style of Shakespeare, and to the English language 
generally. He believes the text to be more nearly authentic than 
any that has yet appeared. The Commentary on the Play does not 
aspire to what is commonly distinguished as the higher criticism. 
It does not seek to examine or to expound this Shakespearian drama 
gssthetically, but only philologically, or with respect to the language. 
The only kind of criticism which it professes is what is called verbal 
criticism. Its whole aim, in so far as it relates to the particular 
work to which it is attached, is, as far as may be done, first, to ascer- 
tain or determine the text; secondly, to explain it; to inquire, in 
other words, what Shakespeare really wrote, and how what he has 
written is to be read and construed. 

The Prolegomena treats of — 

1. Shakespeare's Personal History. 

2. Shakespeare' 1 s Works. 

3. The Sources for the Text of Shakespeare 's Plays. 

4. The Shakespearian Editors and Commentators. 

5. The Modern Shakespearian Texts. 

6. The Mechanism of English Verse, and the Prosody of the 

Plays of Shakespeare. 

7. Shakespeare's Julius Ccesar. 

Chaucer's Parlament of Foules. 

A revised Text, with Literary and Grammatical Introduction, Notes, 
and a full Glossary. By J R. LOUNSBURY, Professor of English in the 
Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College. 121110. Cloth. 11 1 pages. 
Mailing price, 65 cts.; Introduction, 45 cts. 

In the increasing attention paid in schools to the English lan- 
guage and literature, and the necessity, constantly existing, of new 
texts to aid in its pursuit, it seemed desirable that one of the most 
beautiful productions of early English poetry should be brought to 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



the notice of students. With this end in view, the author has 
gathered together all the facts that are known in regard to this work, 
and discusses the chief theories that have been advanced as to its 
production or character, and under the following separate headings : 

1. Date and Composition of the Poe?n. 

2. Sources of the Poem. Under this head is given a free trans- 
lation of Cicero's ' ; Dream of Scipio," to which Chaucer, in the com- 
position of a part of this poem, was so directly indebted. 



3 . Bibliography . 

4. Comparison of the Manuscripts. 

5. Text of this Edition. 

6. Grammatical Forms. 

7. Metre. 



Stephen H. Carpenter, Univ. 
of Wisconsin : No work equalling this 
in scholarship has yet appeared in 
America, so far as I know, upon any 
old English author. 

F. J. Child, Prof, of Eng. Lit., 
Harvard Univ. ; It is so good a book, 
that I am inclined to slight even better 
poetry for it. 

The Hartford Courant : It is a 
great pleasure to come upon such a 
thorough piece of literary work and 
scholarship. The edition is a measure 
of American scholarship by which we 



are very willing the country should be 
estimated abroad. 

James M. Garnett, Pres. of St. 
Johns Coll., Annapolis, Md. : The 
work has been well done. We have 
taken the pains to compare, word for 
word, the first twenty-five stanzas (about 
one-fourth of the poem) in this edition, 
with the text in Bell's Chaucer, and 
with that in Morris's Chaucer, and 
while here and there we might still take 
exception to the metre of a few lines, 
we have no hesitation in giving a very 
decided preference to Professor Louns- 
burv's text. 



Hudson's Life. Art, and Characters of Shake- 

speare. By Henry X. Hudson, Professor of English Literature in 
Boston University. In 2 vols. i2mo. Cloth. 969 pages. Mailing 
price, S3. 45 ; Introduction, 33.00. 

These two volumes contain — 

1 . The Life of Shakespeare. 

2. An Historical Sketch of the Origin and Growth of the 

Drama in England, discussing under this head Miracle- 
Plays. Moral-Plays, and Comedy and Tragedy. 

3. Shakespeare s Contemporaries. 



GINN 6- HEATH'S PUBLICATIONS 



The Introduction gives a history of the Play, the source of the 
plot, historical antecedents, the political situation, a critical estimate 
of the characters, and general characteristics. Explanatory Notes 
at the bottom of the pages, and Critical Notes at the end of the 
volumes. The following Plays have already been issued in this form : 



Hamlet. 
King Lear. 
Merchant of Venice 



Richard Second. 



Macbeth. 
Julius Caesar. 
The Tempest. 



Hudson's Plays of Shakespeare, in Paper Covers. 

(i2mo edition.) Expurgated for School and Family Use. Mailing 
price of each, 35 cts. ; Introduction, 24 cts. 

See under Hudson's School Shakespeare information as to 
expurgations and annotations. The following Plays are issued in 
this form : — 



Hamlet 

The Tempest. 

The Merchant of Venice. 

As You Like It. 

King Lear. 

Romeo and Juliet. 

Henry the Fifth. Othello. 



Macbeth. 

Henry the Eighth. 

Julius Csesar. 

Henry the Fourth, Part I. 

Much Ado About Nothing. 

A Midsummer-Night's Dream. 

Coriotanus. 



The following comments on Mr. Hudson ^s Works seem to us good 
evidence that he stands Facile Princeps among American Shake- 
spearian Editors, and is considered high authority both in Eng- 
land and Germany. 



Mr. F. J. Furnivall's Introduc- 
tion to " The Leopold Shakespeare " : 
The subject of the growth, the oneness 
of Shakespeare, the links between his 
successive plays, the light thrown on 
each by comparison with its neighbors, 
— this subject, in all its branches, is the 
special business of the present, the sec- 
ond school of Victorian students of the 
great Elizabethan poet. In it.Gervinus 
of Heidelberg, Dowden of Dublin, 
Hudson of Boston, arc the student's 
best guides that we have in English 
speech. 



Prof. Dowden, Dublin: Hud- 
son's edition takes its place beside the 
best work of English Shakespeare 
students. 

Edwin P. Whipple : We believe 
that nobody, who has not been a loving 
and intelligent student of Shakespeare, 
— one competent to comprehend the 
wonderful genius of the world's great- 
est mind, — is a fit person to remove 
from Shakespeare's plays those pas- 
sages and scenes which offend modern 
notions of propriety. Mr. Hudson has 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



done this delicate task with incompar- 
able tact and felicity. The beauty, 
grandeur, sublimity, wit, humor, pathos, 
of Shakespeare are preserved in this 
volume; nothing is omitted that is 
really essential to the comprehension 
of Shakespeare's genius as the greatest 
poet and dramatist of the world; 
nothing is omitted which is necessary 
to aid the reader's perception of Shake- 
speare's method of delineating charac- 
ter " from within outwards," or to the 
apprehension of the great master's 
processes in working out his " dramatic 
action." 

The notes are models of brevity 
and intelligence. Indeed, for the edu- 
cation of the youthful mind, as far as 
regards its initiation into the knowl- 
edge of the great genius of the English 
and the human race, nothing could 
be better. 

New York Tribune: As an in- 
terpreter of Shakespeare, imbued with 
the vital essence of the great English 
dramatist, and equally qualified by in- 
sight and study to penetrate the deep- 
est significance of his writings, it would 
be difficult to name an English or 
American scholar who can be com- 
pared with the editor of this volume. 
Mr. Hudson's appreciation of Shake- 
speare, though on this side of idolatry, 
partakes of the nature of worship. He 
regards his plays in the light of a gos- 
pel, filled with lessons of profoundest 
ethical import, touching the springs of 
the purest feeling in the nature of man, 
and revealing fresh beauty and holiness 
in the experience of life. Not even Mr. 
Coleridge, or the late R. H. Dana, the 
great masters in Shakespearian criti- 
cism, and to whom Mr. Hudson would 
not disown discipleship, have evinced 
a more subtle comprehension of the 
finer sense of the many-sided bard, or 
have given a more vigorous and preg- 



nant utterance to their conceptions of 
his meaning. His commentary is a 
study of profound and delicate thought. 
Every sentence is richly freighted with 
ideas, which afford the seeds of pre- 
cious intellectual acquisitions, and the 
suggestions of noble methods in the 
conduct of life. 

W. J. Rolfe, Editor of Shake- 
speare : If any teacher does not like a 
certain other edition for which we nat- 
urally have a friendly feeling, we can 
cordially recommend him to try Mr. 
Hudson's. 

The Congregationalist : His 

scholarly ability and experience as a 
student of Shakespeare place any such 
work from his pen in the front rank. 
Whatever reading or comment has the 
weight of his authority behind it, has 
therein a strong presumption in its 
favor. 

London Athenaeum : Mr. Hud- 
son's volumes deserve to find a place 
in every library devoted to Shake- 
speare, to editions of his works, to his 
biography, and to the works of com- 
mentators. 

E. P. Whipple : Gervinus, the 
greatest Shakespearian critic of Ger- 
many, has recognized Hudson as a 
man whose opinions are to be admitted 
or controverted, as he admits or con- 
troverts the judgments of Schlegel and 
Ulrici, of Johnson, Coleridge, Lamb, 
and Hazlitt. Indeed, we happen to 
know that he recently expressed to an 
American traveller a somewhat con- 
temptuous surprise that the present 
English guardians of Shakespeare's 
fame were so " shamefully " ignorant 
of Hudson's penetrating criticisms, not 
only of the particular plays of Shake- 
speare, but of the processes of Shake- 
speare's mind in its creative activity. 

In commending: this volume to the 



GINN & HEATH'S PUBLICATIONS. 



teachers of the country, we speak of it 
as we would speak of a possible book 
in which Agassiz might embody the re- 
sults of his investigations into natural 
scieftce. Hudson on " Shakespeare " 
is an authority, just as Agassiz is an 
authority in zoology. That Hudson 
has made a school-book out of some 
of the greatest of Shakespeare's plays, 
should be received with the same glad 
recognition with which all teachers 
would welcome the announcement that 
Agassiz had condensed in a school- 
book the results of his studies in nat- 
ural history. None but a master in 
the matter he treats can prepare a 
really good and inspiring educational 
book for the young. 

George S. Hillard : When any 
one differs from Mr. Hudson's conclu- 
sions, it behooves him to examine well 
the grounds of his dissent. Mr. Hud- 
son is an independent and original 
thinker, and no mere transmuter of 
another man's metal. His tone of 
mind is philosophical. We cannot 
read anywhere a dozen pages of these 
volumes without admitting that we are 
conversing with a thinker, and not 
merely a scholar. We recognize every- 
where a peculiar and characteristic 
flavor. Mr. Hudson's views, be they 
deemed right or wrong, sound or un- 
sound, are unborrowed. They are 
coined in his own mint, and bear his 
image and superscription. 

Arthur Gilman, Author of " Out- 
lines of English Literature" : There are 
few men in America who possess the 
qualifications for the work that Mr. 
Hudson has. The enthusiasm of his 
early manhood has not subsided, but 
has been made richer and more mellow 
by the wisdom of maturity; and it 
might have been safely predicted that 
a text prepared by him would combine 



more good features than any that we 
now have. 

John D. Philbrick, formerly 
Superintendent of Schools, Boston, 
Mass. : Shakespeare's Hamlet for the 
use of Schools and Classes, by the 
Rev. Henry N. Hudson, has been ex- 
amined by me with great satisfaction. 
A model text-book for schools is one 
of the rare things in the world, and it 
is a thing as valuable as it is rare. This 
book, I feel confident, is one of those 
precious rarities. In substance and 
form it displays equally the hand of 
the master in this speciality. The peda- 
gogy in the preface, the explanatory 
helps in the foot-notes, the aesthetical 
criticism in the introduction, and the 
textual criticism in the appendix, pre- 
sent a combination of excellences sel- 
dom met with, and such as could have 
been produced only by a first-rate 
scholar and a first-rate teacher united 
in one and the same person. Such a 
union is found in the editor. If any 
man has been better fitted by nature 
and experience for such a task than 
Mr. Hudson, he has not come to my 
knowledge. Young America is to be 
congratulated on his good fortune in 
having this supreme classic so perfectly 
prepared for his study. 

Mr. H. H. Furness, in his vario- 
rum edition of King Lear, page 438 : 
I cannot refrain from here recording 
my thorough admiration for Mr. Hud- 
son's aesthetic criticisms. No Shake- 
speare-student can afford to overlook 
them. 

Joseph Crosby, Zanestnlie, Ohio: 
They give results, without annoying or 
vexing students with processes. They 

are the best editions for classes and 
clubs that I know of; and I have read 
all. The explanatory notes are, where 



ory i 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



of course they ought always to be, at 
the foot of the page ; they give what the 
Editor understands to be the correct 
explanations at once ; and do not puzzle 
readers with a lot of variorum explan- 
ations, and leave them, unaided, to se- 
lect for themselves which are the true 
ones. And I like his style too. It is 
fresh, original, and pungent. He is 
determined that none of his readers 
shall go to sleep over his notes and 
monographs. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes: An 

edition of any play of Shakespeare's to 
which Mr. Hudson's name is affixed 
does not need a line from anybody to 
commend it. 

F. J. Chil-., Prof, of Eng. Lit., 
Harvard Coll. : Any such book from 
Mr. Hudson's hand must command 
attention. 

Cyrus Northrop, Prof, of Eng. 
Lit., Yale Coll. : It is convenient in 
form, and edited by Hudson, — two 
good things which I can see at a glance. 

J. B. Unthank, Prof of History 
a?id Eng. Lit., Wilmi7igton Coll., Ohio : 
I think it better adapted to the use of 
students than any other edition with 
which I am acquainted. I shall cer- 
tainly use it in my classes. 

Henry L. Chapman, Prof of 

Eng. Lit., Bowdoin Coll. ; The editing 
of these books is, of course, admirable, 
and the introductions and notes are 
worthy of the highest praise. 

William R. Shipman, Prof of 
Eng. Lit. in Tufts Coll. : I have long 
held Hudson's Shakespeare in high 
esteem, making more use of it than of 
any other edition. 



Louise M. Hodgkins, Prof of 
E?2g. Lit. i?i Wellesley Coll., Mass. : To 
both pupil and teacher the notes and 
suggestions never fail to be pleasing, 
interesting, instructive, and profitable. 
Through no source do I gain more 
helpful suggestions in my Shakespeare 
studies than by the clear notes and ex- 
cellent criticisms of Mr. Hudson. 

Edward H. Griffin, Prof of Eng, 
Lit., Williams Coll.: Mr. Hudson's 
text-books need no commendation. 

John A Himes, Prof of Eng. 
Lit., Pennsylvania Coll. : I find the 
notes very instructive and judicious. 
Those who know Mr. Hudson will be 
glad to learn that he is publishing a 
complete edition of Shakespeare's 
Works. It is pretty certain to be in- 
ferior to no other edition. 

W. H. Appleton, Prof of Eng. 
Lit., Swarthmore Coll., Pa. : It is what 
one might expect, coming from Mr. 
Hudson. It is, in all respects, admira- 
ble. The notes tell the student just 
what he needs to know, and what he 
could not perhaps find out elsewhere 
without great labor ; while he is not so 
deluged with comment as to leave him 
no opportunity for the exercise of his 
own powers of reflection or investiga- 
tion. 

A. C. Perkins, Prin. of Phillips 
Exeter Acad. : The time has long gone 
by when readers of Shakespeare need 
to have Hudson commended to them, 
or to be reminded of the value of his 
comments. 

James H. Canfield, Prof of 
Eng. Lit., Univ. of Kansas : No one 
can, for a moment, question the origin- 
ality, ability, or value of Mr. Hudson's 
criticisms on Shakespeare. 



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